Yesterday’s announcement that the company behind popular ad-blocking browser extension Adblock Plus started its own ad network wasn’t all that surprising in hindsight: the company had been selling the right to show some users unobtrusive ads to publishers for five years. The news did take two companies that Adblock Plus claimed would be its partners in the ad exchange by surprise: ad companies AppNexus and Google. [More]
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AdBlock Plus Goes Into The Business Of Selling Ads: Wait, What?
By 9.13.16
AdBlock Plus, the popular browser extension that does exactly what it sounds like, has actually been in the ad business for a long time, letting unobtrusive “acceptable” ads through, taking a percentage of the proceeds. Some publishers characterize this as a shakedown, but the company behind AdBlock Plus says that it’s simply trying to make ads more pleasant and less disruptive for everyone. Now the company is going into the business of selling ads. [More]
That Was Fast: Ad-Blocker Announces Block For Facebook’s Ad-Blocker Blocking
By 8.11.16
You use Facebook as a place to post and store photos, dumb memes, and articles about the political foofaraw du jour. Facebook uses Facebook as a way to gather direct profiles for billions of souls that can be advertised to, and as a way to make money selling those ads. There’s a natural tension there, when Facebook wants you to be the product and you would rather not. These days, that tension is evolving into something like an advertising cold war. [More]
AdBlock Plus Will Use An Independent Board To Choose Ads To Unblock
By 9.30.15
One way that ad-blocking programs make money is, paradoxically, by showing you some ads. The popular add-on AdBlock Plus shows users ads that it deems “acceptable” by default, and has been accused of charging some publishers a percentage of the ad income that otherwise would have been lost. Now the maker of AdBlock Plus, Eyeo, is changing how it decides which ads deserve unblocking. [More]
Popular iOS Ad-Blockers Charge Advertisers For Access To Your Eyeballs
By 9.24.15
Now that ad-blockers are available for Apple’s iOS phone and tablet platform, the ad industry is nervous. Yet not as nervous as it could be: adding ad-blockers to iDevices is just an extension of how ad-blocking works on your desktop. Depending on which extension or app you use, advertisers may be paying the developer for access to your screen. [More]
AdBlock Plus Still Either Making Advertising Tolerable Or Shaking Down Publishers
By 2.4.15
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. [More]
Should Online Publishers Block Users Who Install Ad-Blockers?
By 4.4.14
The Interactive Advertising Bureau is a trade group for, well, interactive advertising. That’s to say clickable online banner and video ads. If you’re one of the smarmy people piping up right now to say, “there are ads on the Internet? I wouldn’t know, I use ad-blockers,” you’re part of the problem as far as the IAB is concerned. [More]
Adblock Plus: Internet Heroes Or Banner Ad Shakedown Artists?
By 5.14.13
Most of our readers are familiar with Adblock Plus, the browser extension that does what the name describes: blocks ads. For some people, it’s the only thing that makes browsing the Internet tolerable; for others, it’s an evil entity strangling the media industry. What you may not know is that the open-source extension is allowing some advertisers access to your eyeballs…but only if users deem them acceptable. Oh, and some large sites have to pay. [More]
