Mobile Ad Blocking Triples in Germany and Switzerland during November
Over the course of just three weeks, ad blocking rates have more than tripled on mobile devices running the Android operating system. While we were measuring roughly 1.8% ad blocking on Android in October, we’re now up to 6.3% by the end of November.
On Oct 30, 2017, the very same day Samsung released version 6.2 of their Android web browser, ad blocking rates jumped and continued to rise every day since. Samsung’s latest browser comes with a built-in “tracking blocker” which blocks requests to certain ad servers known for user tracking. By providing an option to limit extensive data collection while browsing the web, Samsung has implemented what many users are asking for.
Even though the browser still allows ads and tracking by default, users now have the option to actively block ads and tracking. The latest statistics indicate that a growing number of mobile device users are aware of this feature and proactively choose to make use of it.
Two EU regulations have the potential to reinforce this trend: The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will take effect on May 25, 2018, as well as the ensuing EU ePrivacy Regulation, which is still being discussed by EU authorities. According to these new regulations, Browser vendors may be forced to make such tracking protections the default. Similar to Samsung, Google has already announced to introduce comparable features for their Chrome browser in Q1/2018. Publishers are now facing the challenge to provide suitable offers for their privacy aware customers.
While mobile ad blocking seemed negligible in the past, there is a clear turnaround since the end of October. We are convinced that the future of most digital media will be on mobile, so there’s a clear need for privacy-friendly solutions that respect the user’s choice.
We recently announced to launch “Privacy Pass”, which will allow publishers to deliver their offerings in a privacy-friendly way — without banner-ads and tracking.
