Some are saying that this is a big outcry over nothing, but I think there’s a point to be made here. With both this example and their DNS error page, and it’s not just that they are doing this. They are doing it poorly.

If you look at the design and text of the pages they are inserting Rogers could do so much better.

Example 1: Michael Geist’s example page.

The text takes up half the screen. It’s not clean and tight. It even goes so far as to mention ‘if you’ve upgraded already – ignore this message’. If you’re going to take over someone’s screen, shouldn’t you already know if they’ve upgraded?

This could be improved with a small corner box at the top of the page – unobtrusive, which brings up a more detailed message about what they are looking for here. Instead this ugly box takes over much of my page and doesn’t add a whole lot of value – especially since it will have come up somewhat randomly for the user.

Example 2: Let’s take the more relevant example, the DNS error page. In my example here I entered for “gogle’ in my URL bar and reached a page with some ugly ads, bad search links and sponsored results. It’s quite clear what my mistake was here. Quite likely I was looking for Google. Why not just have a simple, clean interface outlining what the DNS server thought I was looking for. Google doesn’t seem to have a problem figuring this out. Even better, why not just send me to Google if the URL was close enough.

If you’re going to do page takeovers (and I’ll leave my comments about this until later), they are a chance to communicate and interact with your customers. Why does Rogers insist on looking like a 3rd tier cybersquatter, rather than craft an elegant and page which adds value to their customers experience? They can’t be making that much money from the URL redirect page, and instead raises the ire of Net Neutrality advocates for diminishing their internet experience.