The Internet has opened up a whole new world for advertisers. If potential customers for your goods or services see a 30-second T-V commercial, you're extremely limited in how much information you can give them. If they visit your website, you can provide them with all the information they need to make a purchasing decision. That's why most T-V ads now include the Internet address for the advertiser. When a potential customer visits a company's website, they can be presented with an entire product line, advantages over competitors, and a price list. They can even place an order right over the Web. The computer can also track exactly how many people have seen the message. The only problem for advertisers now is how to attract Internet users to their sites. This has produced another form of Internet advertising. They're called banner ads, and you can find them everywhere on the Web. They typically run across the top of the Web page or down one side. By clicking on them, you are taken directly to the advertiser's site. Running these banner ads helps support the web sites on which they appear, allowing web surfers to have free access to huge amounts of information, not to mention fun and games. One type of Internet advertising has proven to be a problem. Spam is the Internet equivalent of junk mail. Marketers can collect millions of E-mail addresses and send an ad to each one without the expense of printing or postage. Software programs are available to reduce or eliminate spam. Complaints to the spammer's service provider are also effective.
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