Google Allowing Site Visitors to Close Flash and Video AdSense Ads

I run one AdSense ad at the bottom of the sidebar and another one in the footer on this site. Today, for the first time, I noticed a little X at the top right corner of these ads:

Video ad:

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Flash ad:

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If you click on the little X, the ads will disappear!

No more video ad:

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No more flash ad:

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I didn’t recall hearing or seeing anything about this before, so I snooped around a bit and found that Barry noted a similar occurance on a flash AdSense ad at the end of January:

Today was the first day I spotted a Google AdSense Flash ad on Cartoon Barry. I noticed a little X box at the top right, when I moused over it, it said “close”.

Unlike Barry’s experience, however, the Flash and Video ad on this site displayed the little X for me the entire time.  It didn’t matter if you hovered your mouse over the ads or not.

Upon refreshing the page, the ads came back.  Also, after closing the ads on one page, when navigating through other pages the ads appeared.

That’s it,
—kid disco