​Who Blocks the Ad Blockers?

In recent years, the growing popularity of ad blockers has created an industry panic for most media companies and advertisers. Ad blockers are the plug-in applications you add to your browser to block ads from interfering with your general enjoyment of all the great things the internet has to offer. It’s a simple yet increasingly vital feature for what is quickly becoming the vast majority of internet users.

But while ad blockers are certainly helpful for consumers, they’ve created a major revenue crunch for companies that rely on advertising dollars to keep the lights on. It’s led to advertisers and content providers taking drastic measures like begging readers to turn off their ad blockers or using technology to disable the applications themselves. Some even prevent ad blocker users from using their sites altogether.

So it was amidst this climate that an interesting development unfolded this week after Adblock Plus, the largest of the adblockers, announced (unironically) that it would be launching its own ad network. The “ad marketplace” would allow advertisers and publishers to serve up ads deemed “acceptable” to Adblock Plus’ users. So instead of blocking all ads, only the “good” ads will be shown to people. It’s actually an expanded version of what Adblock Plus has been doing since 2011. Users have the ability to choose whether they want acceptable ads too.

While on the surface, this service may sound innocuous, the announcement ruffled quite a few feathers within the industry. Critics say Adblock Plus, which is estimated to have 50 million users with over 500 million downloads to date, has essentially positioned itself as the gatekeeper of the internet and has now decided that it wants to start collecting tolls. In fact, the company, which is a subsidiary of Eyeo GmbH, says that while its service is free for normal users and small businesses, it charges “large entities” (think Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), etc.) a licensing fee that normally represents 30% of the additional revenue created by whitelisting its acceptable ads.

Big Tech Pushes Back

On Wednesday, a day after Adblock Plus’ announcement, Google and AppNexus made an announcement of their own. The two tech firms said they were severing ties with Adblock Plus as well as ComboTag, a third-party ad provider for Adblock Plus’ new marketplace. Apparently, Google and AppNexus had no desire to participate in Adblock Plus’ new venture, and were not even aware of its development.

Google issued a statement saying, “We were surprised by the announcement and learned of it when we were contacted by press. We have no involvement in their program and this is not a business we want to be part of. We are moving to terminate ComboTag’s AdX account. Ad blocking is a symptom of bad ads online, and that’s why we believe the industry needs to align around a standard — backed by data and insights from conversations with real consumers — for what constitutes a better ads experience online.”

The pushback from Google is not much of a surprise. For Adblock Plus, this is at least a setback to its power grab within an industry that is growing increasingly annoyed with its existence. In 2015, Adobe released a study that estimated as much as $21.8 billion in global ad revenue would be blocked. Bad enough, digital advertising rates have been plummeting in recent years. Now, it’s being cut off altogether. Ad blockers have disrupted a long-standing social contract between consumers and content providers. Free content is yours, if you’re willing to endure some of these ads.

To get around that, media and advertising companies have had to evolve their approaches. Native advertising, earned content, branded content, sponsored content, and a host of other terms have grown in prominence as a result. It’s not unlike how product placement became much more prevalent on TV after people kept fast forwarding through commercials on their DVRs. All the while, digital advertising continues to sit there like a pattern just outside of the F-shape pattern.

But if Adblock Plus, or any ad blocker for that matter, isn’t the chosen one to lead the conversation of what digital advertising needs to do to reconnect with internet users, then who is it?

(Photo by Joe The Goat Farmer)

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