Imagine a dark room, some light comes from the gap under the door or the curtained window. You can barely see anything. The room looks like a small apartment, i.e. Has a couch, TV, stereo system, washing machine in the corner, etc. There is also a table with a light on it and a laptop. There is no electricity, none of the mentioned appliances work, except the laptop which incidentally runs on batteries. You come in, turn on the laptop, catch the wireless domestic network and proceed to the Internet. The first banner you see - and the controlling computer; which you haven't really noticed at first in the corner of the room, clicks on and gives some electricity. It gives just barely enough power to turn on the lamp on the desk.

We rarely ever think of it, but in fact every ad-banner we load while browsing the Internet works for it's owner. No matter whether we click on it or not, or simply don't pay attention altogether - once it's on our screen, a tiny counter somewhere on a taiwanese web-server "clicks" and converts counts into more and more currency. Monetary currency. And what did we do? We just helped it happen. In other words - everyday we work an unconscious job - jobs that "business" minded guys want us to commit to, in exchange for the "information" they provide.
Of course I'm not blaming owners of homepages or web-blogs. I'm more concerned about those monstrous corporate minded web-sites that solely function as a place that gathers freely available information and "feeds" it to community afterwards. "Poweronoff online" is a project that will help internet users get even. It might not make the information free but can at least show us how unfair internet business often is. Being properly implemented in "real life", it can even help people live those free lives.

The system counts every appearance of an advertisement (also known as banners) on the particular web page you are browsing at the time and "converts" it; not into cash, but into something else, more-or less material - to electrical power. The power from the wall plug is something in this "computer age" we are always happy to get; of course not for free, but it "feels" free since we are so used to watching commercials without any sensible feedback.
One loaded banner equals to one "point". Each point is equivalent to 10 Watts/hours of energy that you receive. In theory, a day of ordinary browsing can keep your apartment lit, wash your cloth and charge your laptop. It may even provide really free access to the information since you won't spend any extra money on paying bills for the electricity your computer devices consume and can even compensate the costs of broadband internet connection. Of course, the energy isn't generated by the banners themselves, there must be a convention established between ad-banner networks and you local electricity provider. But let's leave this fact as it is since the idea is more aimed to the principal aspect of the subject.

One banner won't really give you much power, let's say it gives 10 Watts per hour, which means your desk light will work for about an hour. But on the Internet we see many more banners than just one. We see thousands of them per day. The further you browse, the higher the counter on the "metal box" goes. You decide for yourself, what to use the energy for, or maybe the box can even help you decide. Once you reach 100W level - the television goes on. Another hundred makes the laundry machine start cleaning your cloths, and so on. And yes, I forgot the main important part - your portable computer charges, which gives you the ability to keep on watching banners and powering up the environment. "Poweronoff online" represents an utopian model of future human life, when everything, including even powering up your living environment is done via using global Net. What I propose in the project is fair relation between internet users and IT companies, in particular ad-banner exchange networks. The question I'm rising is - why are we helping the "ad" machine to run (and to enrich their owners) and not getting anything in return?
Wouldn't it be nice to get, let's say, a Watt of electricity for each commercial we saw or clicked on the Internet? The system is keeping eye on the local network traffic and counts every ad related URL passing through as a hit which immediately impacts on the surroundings; more banners you see - more power your space gets. First, the lamp on your desk gets lit, then the laptop you are using starts to charge. "The power" can be accumulated - you can hit "refresh" in your browser and get enough current to watch some TV or maybe even do your laundry. Each "appliance" is accompanied with a light which saturates the experience of adjusting your real ambiance situation via immaterial actions.