By Graham K. Rogers

The first things I do after breakfast are to check email, read the Twitter messages and then check NetNewsWire for stories that have appeared overnight via RSS. I look at the headlines, click one or two to see outlines of certain stories; and with those that look worth a deeper read, open them in Safari.

These days, one or two have ads that take up some of the screen, but an item on Microsoft's withdrawal of Windows 10 version 1511 which did demand a full read, was totally obscured by a black panel. This eventually loaded a massive advertisement, with a second, thinner one below asking me to subscribe to a ZDNet email service.

No, No and No. I invariably close these ads with only a cursory glance and inwardly note that this site (whichever it is) has a higher pest value. With two ads, one of which I had to wait until it loaded before I could dismiss it, ZDNet goes to the top of that "to be avoided" list.

Advertising needs to be aimed at the customer - including user experience - and should not follow simply the diktat of the accountancy department.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.