Defeating Its Own Purpose: Chasing Dollars, Adblock Plus Now Wants to Show You ‘Acceptable Ads’
Adblock Plus, whose sole purpose is to block ads, is opening its service to advertisers. Wait, what?
It’s true: Adblock Plus wants to make money by pushing ads on you. The difference, the company, says, is that it will replace all the ugly, intrusive ads with smaller, more subtle ads.
Still—the irony remains very present.
This new marketplace holds ads to high standards: no tracking, and limited to certain dimensions and locations on the page. At the same time it’s designed to be publisher-friendly, insofar as an ad blocking service can be.
AdBlock Plus doesn’t stand to make a killing through this—it will receive just 6% of total revenue from the ads it lets through—but the so-called Acceptable Ads program helps publishers get something through to consumers who would otherwise see nothing at all, which helps ABP stay friendly on both sides of the battlefield. For now, anyway. The company must not anger customers too much, however, as there are several worthy competitors lurking in the shadows, eager to help you block all ads.
