[codezero]

Serving on the main site leaves the attribution for views/click throughs in the hands of the site owner, who may or may not tell the truth about the success of the ads.

I'm sure there are lots of ways to work this out though, it's likely that they are more complex or more unreliable than what already exists, or nobody has thought of a better way that meets the needs of 1) advertisers 2) ad networks 3) content providers in a practical way.

If anyone comes up with such a system, it may do well, but then again, you'd have to get that system adopted somehow.

[alkonaut]

Ads and reliable counting should be possible to provide from the content providers site. Tracking/identification is optional. The question is just: if it's the only choice available, would advertisers want to pay for non-individualized ads being shown to all visitors, without any chance of click-through counts?

My guess is: initially no. But eventually? Why not? All we did then was turn web advertising into what it was from the beginning - print ads on a screen.