Inventor of the Pop-Up Ad Apologizes for Helping to Ruin the Internet

Ethan Zuckerman calls for revenue reform

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If you were looking for someone to blame every time a pop-up ad mars your Web-browsing experience, here's a guy who'd like to nominate himself—and offer his apologies.

Ethan Zuckerman, Internet pioneer and director of MIT's Center for Civic Media, takes to the pages of The Atlantic in a lengthy essay titled The Internet's Original Sin. In it, he delves into the myriad issues around something we all might generally take for granted: a free, ad-supported Web.

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