AdBlock joins rival AdBlock Plus in Acceptable Advertising 'extortion' scheme

Adblock, used by around 40 million people worldwide says it has been sold to an unknown buyer, for an unknown sum. While details of the deal revealed today are hopelessly vague, publicity around it has shone a light on the ad blocking industry and a scheme to shaking down advertisers.

An immediate consequence of the sale is that Adblock will join the Acceptable Advertising programme already promoted by Eyeo, the parent company of larger rival Adblock Plus (formerly, Adblock and Adblock Plus have had no connection).

Advertisers can pay to be white-listed under the Acceptable Advertising intiative, if they meet certain criteria. Adblock Plus (and now Adblock) will then allow their ads to appear.

Adblock Plus says it's merely vetting ads to make sure "annoying" ones don't get through. US tech site The Verge calls Acceptable Advertising "kind of like a toll booth, or extortion, depending on how you look at it." Snakk Media boss Mark Ryan told NBR earlier this week that it's a "hostage situation".

A crucial element of Acceptable Advertising is that it whitelists Google ads.

Pagefair — which monitored Google's annual shareholder meeting earlier this year where the subject came up — says joining the whitelist both allows Google to skirt the impact of ad blocking on its revenue and (presuming it's paying a pretty big "toll" for that privilege) likely makes the search giant the major funder of ad blocking companies.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Microsoft (which sells ads through Bing) also pays to belong to the Acceptable Advertising scheme.

POSTSCRIPT: By one estimate, nearly one million Kiwis use an ad-blocker. And that number is likely to grow given the latest version of iOS (the software that runs iPhones and iPads) has made it easier for third-party ad-blockers to run on Apple devices — fueling a boom in their uptake. NBR ONLINE only serves one ad to desktop users, and no ads to mobile users; our focus is on revenue generated by reader subscriptions. So when you use an ad blocker, consider turning it off when you pay us a visit, or put nbr.co.nz on your permanent disable ad blocking list. Cheers.