[LINK] Adverts on govt websites

[Kerry Webb]

On 21/01/14 10:01 AM, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> I have adblock on my browser so I seldom see any ads at all. This one
> caught me by surprise as a result:
>
> http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/ads-to-stay-on-weather-bureau-website-20140120-314uc.html
> Commercial advertising will be a permanent feature of the Bureau of
> Meteorology website and the federal government has refused to rule
> out running ads on other publicly funded websites.
>
> In April the Gillard government introduced the first trial of
> advertising on a government website on the bureau site for one year.
>
> But, after Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey warned
> of steep spending cuts with the next budget, a government spokeswoman
> refused to rule out the spread of commercial advertising to websites
> such as Centrelink, the Australian Taxation Office and Australian Job Search.
> [snip]
>

In the 2001 ACT Assembly election, some bright spark in the ALP included 
in their platform a proposal that paid advertising on ACT Govt websites 
would be used to fund some of their online initiatives.  We had to work 
hard to convince the incoming government that this was a bad idea.

Our research found that people trusted sites with advertising much less 
than those without, and also we wouldn't expect to get much return from 
selling the ad space.  I guess times have changed.

Kerry

-- 
Kerry Webb
Canberra, Australia