Ad-blocking browser extensions can make Web-surfing tolerable when you find ads that are animated, pop up, or produce sound tedious. However, users’ ad-eschewing ways are bad for content providers that support themselves with sponsors. The extension AdBlock Plus tries to find a compromise between these competing interests, allowing the least offensive ads through. For a price. Now we’ve learned that big companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are paying to have ads let through the system.

This should surprise absolutely no one. The owner of AdBlock Plus says that about ten percent of publishers that take part in its Acceptable Ads initiative pay the company to have theirs let through. They say that there are about “300 sites/entities” that are part of the program, but does Google count as a single site or entity?

One ad company that’s paying for service is Taboola, one of the companies that provide “Around the Web…” content blocks to sites that lead to seeing the same posts on other sites advertised over and over.

While the company doesn’t say how much they charge whitelisted sites that are asked to pay, sites that have negotiated say that they’ve been asked to give Eyeo 30-33% of the revenues they make from ads that otherwise would have been blocked.

Over 300 businesses now whitelisted on AdBlock Plus, 10% pay to play [Ars Technica]

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