New York Times Pre-Roll Ads

I've noticed in the last month or so that the New York Times has begun inserting ads between the blurb of a story and the actual article. In other words, when you click on a link to go to a story, occasionally an ad is fed between the link and the article.

What I've also found is that about 1 out of every 3 times my Firefox browser gets hung up and I have to hit the back button (reload doesn't work). (I have my browser set to not show ads. ) So I contacted the Times to ask whether a subscription to their TimesSelect product would eliminate these ads. (Yes, I'd pay $30/year to get rid of those things, along with the other benefits of TimesSelect.) After filling in the form, selecting 'Other' as the problem I was having, this is the email I received in response:

Subject: NYTimes Other

We regret the inconvenience you experienced accessing our Web site.

There are a few possible reasons why you were asked to log in to our Web site, the most probable being that the 'cookie' that stored your saved sign-in information on your computer expired or was deleted. Reminder: You must accept cookies from NYTimes.com in order to go beyond the log-in screen.

1. If you remember your Member ID and password:
For the quickest solution, please go directly to the following web address (URL) to log out of The New York Times on the Web: www.nytimes.com/logout

Then click on the link to "Log in."

Now on the page that follows, look at the right part of your screen for the section marked LOG IN NOW and enter your Member ID and password.

Next, click on the LOG IN button to submit your request.

2. If you have forgotten your Member ID and/or password for the quickest way to gain access to our site please visit:
www.nytimes.com/forgot

Or, if you wish, you may reply to this message (include the e-mail address that you originally registered with, please) and we will reset the password for you. To speed things up, please write "Reset Password" in the Subject line of your e-mail message.

Thanks for your interest in NYTimes.com.
Regards,
NYTimes.com
Customer Service
www.nytimes.com/help

After the salutation and first sentence, I wanted to look over my shoulder to see if they were talking to me, because clearly this email did not address my question.

However, several hours later I received this email:

Thank you for writing to The New York Times on the Web.

You will still see normal ads on our Web site, but as a TimesSelect subscriber, you will not see any "intrusive" advertising

while you are accessing our TimesSelect content or features. If you go from a TimesSelect column to a regular news article

on NYTimes.com, you might encounter an advertisement that is more intrusive, such as a pop-up ad. We do limit this type

of advertisement to one per Web browser session.

We hope this helps. Please let us know if you have further questions or concerns.

Regards,

NYTimes.com

Customer Service

www.nytimes.com/help

I thought, "That's more like it," though of course I wasn't happy with the response. It seems that if I'm going to pay $49.95 "automatically renewed" every year I ought to be able to avoid intrusive advertising.