Is ad blocking a thread?
Friday, September 7th, 2007In today’s Clickz article “Tackling Adblock Plus“, Ian Schafer expresses his deep concerns about Adblock Plus, a Firefox filtering add-on that removes all advertising from web pages:
Blocking ads en masse is a critical threat to the stability of the unwritten contract between publisher/service provider, and the consumer — especially when the content delivered or services rendered aren’t premium or paid. It’s not only publishers who would be affected by mass adoption of something like Adblock Plus, but ironically, the consumers themselves by cutting off the life support to content-developing and -sustaining businesses.
The author also mentions the “Why Firefox is Blocked” initiative, which publishers can join in response to the ad removal tool to block all Firefox users from their web sites, including the vast majority of Firefox users that do not have the extension installed.
My comments: (more…)
