Practically admitting his creation, the Internet pop-up ad, has morphed into an out-of-control digital demon, Ethan Zuckerman, has taken the extraordinary step of apologizing for ever having come up with the idea.

In an essay printed in The Atlantic, Zuckerman, now director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT and principal research scientist at MIT's Media Lab, writes, "I wrote the code to launch the window and run an ad in it. I'm sorry. Our intentions were good."

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From an advertising standpoint, Zuckerman's creation was a boon. But from the standpoint of the user, pop-ups diminished personal control, the number-one unspoken rule of what you do not do in cyberspace. In practical terms, pop-ups range from mildly annoying a user (who ignores it and promptly it clicks off) to downright dangerous, being portals to viruses, malware, and spyware.

Initially a cute novelty, pop-ups snowballed into something far more sinister in the form of the ad-based business model that rules supreme over the Internet. That led to varying degrees of online surveillance, first by businesses and then by governments and law enforcement. That led to Internet users unknowingly getting profiles with entities they did not know existed. That resulted in an overall lack of privacy and a compromise of net neutrality, issues now of such grave importance they are being hotly debated in courts and capitals across the globe, and prompted Zuckerman's mea culpa.

Zuckerman cited the words of programmer Maciej Ceglowski, creator of the Pinboard personal web archive and bookmarking site, which has an emphasis on user privacy: "Advertising became the default business model on the web, 'the entire economic foundation of our industry,' because it was the easiest model for a web startup to implement, and the easiest to market to investors."

The business-ization of the Internet was perhaps unavoidable. When venture capital dried up with the Dot-Com Bust of 2000, websites, including the one where Zuckerman worked, frantically realigned their business plans to stay afloat. Advertising was one idea among many, but it quickly took the lead. Ironically, very little money is actually made from pop-ups. And, Zuckerman notes, that isn't the point, or at least not directly. He notes that  most online advertising does not follow a user's interest.

Instead, it acts as a competitor for attention once a person starts navigating or buying. In effect, it turns the user into a guinea pig for various online marketing ploys, something Facebook and OkCupid already admit to. Today, whenever a user clicks an ad, the act is recorded by someone somewhere and that user's privacy goes down a peg.

"It's a barrier you have to overcome, minimizing windows, clicking it out of the way, ignoring it, to get to the article or interaction you want," he wrote. 

Today, several services have pop-up blockers, but the ad-based Internet is a set business model. And we all have to get used the consequences. 

TagsPop-up, Ethan Zuckerman, public apology