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Posted by: Jake Casper	9/6/2007 3:28 PM
So far, the major providers of online contextual advertising have declined to respond to the controversy caused by the Firefox blocking and Adblock Plus debates. Right now you can access Google’s SERPS (search engine results pages) on Firefox while running the Adblock Plus plugin, thereby disabling all of Google’s own contextual ads that would otherwise be served to you. The fact that nothing has been done so far suggests that Google, Yahoo and the other major advertising providers don’t regard ad blocking as a major threat to their business – yet. You can bet, however, that they will be watching the way events unfold very carefully. Contextual advertising is responsible for most of Google and Yahoo’s multi-billion dollar income, and they last thing they’ll want is advertisers and web site owners deserting their services in droves in search of more reliable revenue models. If the situation becomes more serious, with more and more web users switching to Firefox and using the Adblock plugin (according to Adblock’s own figures, the user base is growing by 400,000 a month), the large search-and-ad businesses could find themselves in an invidious position. Do they accept the decline in their primary business model, or do they risk driving users away from their SERPS by blocking Firefox access? This problem isn’t likely to arise for a while yet, but when and if it does it will require some imaginative solutions on the part of the big players.
Copyright ©2007 Jake Casper
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Re: How will the major players respond to ad blocking technology?

By This is sooo dumb on 9/6/2007 3:36 PM

Here's why this is all stupid. Bear with me now because only stupid people cause a stir over such a silly issue. You could accomplish the same task by editing your host file, simple as that; done. There are plenty of websites that distribute lists to paste into it that will get rid of a huge majority of ads. Which means this isn't a Firefox issue alone and pointing the finger at a single browser or browser extension is a silly, fruitless attempt at garnering some debate on the web. What if you didn't have Flash installed? Then you wouldn't see any flash advertisements. How about a text-only browser? Oh my gosh, what if you were blind?! I bet blind people *really* piss off people who run websites with ads. Don't take my idea though, I'm already registering "keeptheblindofftheweb.com". As for the whole "Do they have the right to edit copyrighted data?" you're going at it from the wrong perspective. It's akin to saying something along the lines of "If you want to read this book you have to read EVERY SINGLE word!" Not only is it downright impossible to prove that the person read every single word, it's self defeating because in the end, if you do find a way to enforce it, people will just skip over your information which will result in less profits for the author/publisher. In short: does this really deserve a site devoted to it?

Re: How will the major players respond to ad blocking technology?

By Plain text. on 9/6/2007 5:24 PM

Google always ignores a situation till they have something concrete to back up their words with. MS and Yahoo are again mulling the idea of an MS buyout. MS itself has no worries as the blocking doesn't affect their latest web based platform. The major shift you'll see is content providers moving their content into Flash and Silverlight. BTW blind people deal with almost as many ads as sighted people do, even more if you consider the Alt tags that are read to them while sighted people can simply avert their eyes.

Re: How will the major players respond to ad blocking technology?

By Danny Carlton on 9/26/2007 4:46 PM

Firefox endorses and distributes AdBlock Plus. AdBlock plus is the only ad blocking software to prevent site owners from detecting it. That is the problem. If ad blocking software would allow a simply detection method, then those sites that choose can limit or "nag" ad block users if they choose. It's not about not lookign at an ad or blocking a domain in your host file. It's about removing the ability of site owners to control the content of their sites.

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