VideoEgg is coupling the new product with a “cost per engagement” pricing model, in which marketers pay for an ad only when a consumer reacts to it. Typically, marketers buy display ads based on the number of “ad impressions” delivered — or times an ad is shown on a Web page.

This ad format should be called “marketers stealing from publishers.” Cost per click ads are evil, and so are cost-per-engagement ads.

Any publisher that embraces this ad model is embracing their own destruction. It’s kind of like a brick-and-mortar retailer saying “well, in our new store, you only pay for the stuff that you eat after you leave the shop.”