Advertising and its Discontents
Anytime ad blocking is brought up in an online forum, you will inevitably see a number of almost reflexive attacks. “Your favorite sites will die without advertising!” “Advertising is the foundation to the open web!” There are many more well-worn… (READ MORE)
A recently released study on the spread of ad blocking and its effects, researched by advertising software maker PageFair, has brought renewed attention to the online ad avoidance movement. The findings of the study are complex, even contradictory, but both… (READ MORE)
German publishers have amassed a singularly unimpressive legal track record in their attempts to ban ad blocking through litigation. At least five different publishers have lost court battles over ad blocking in general, and against the Cologne based startup Eyeo/Ad Block Plus, in… (READ MORE)
Rob Leathern, the CEO of Optimal.com, a commercial platform attempting to “fix advertising” by eliminating the worst actors while still directing revenue to publishers, released the results of a survey commissioned with Wells Fargo, examining attitudes among web users to… (READ MORE)
A number of online publishers have decided to express their displeasure with ad blocking by creating “ad walls” that prevent readers from accessing content without viewing ads. Pioneered by the Bild newspaper in Germany, the trend has been continued by… (READ MORE)
Publishers and advertisers have taken their fight against ad blocking to the courts in Germany. The Axel Springer publishing house has, for over a year, undertaken a campaign of lawsuits against targets involved in ad blocking, most notably Eyeo the… (READ MORE)
Skirmishes in the looming battle between publishers and ad blockers broke out again this week, as the concept of ad avoidance continued to disseminate more broadly. Who could have guessed just a few months ago that “ad blocker” would be… (READ MORE)
Heroic/notorious NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden recently outlined his recommendations for maintaining privacy online, and had this to say about ad blocking. We’ve seen internet providers like Comcast, AT&T, or whoever it is, insert their own ads into your plaintext http… (READ MORE)
The last week or so has reminded me again of just how different the ad avoidance landscape has become since Apple’s big content blocking move. Stories, analyses and reactions keep popping up daily, and the topic remains hot among marketers,… (READ MORE)
The recent Adblockalypse has provoked a wide variety of reactions from those likely to be affected. Digital advertising is so broadly deployed and so central to the online economy that any potential disruption of the status quo was bound to… (READ MORE)