AdBlock Plus has announced to launch a new service … just to put more ads on your browser window. Would you believe it? Yes, it is 100% true. Eyeo GmbH – the German company behind the most famous online ad blocking software AdBlock Plus – said on Tuesday that it is launching an advertising service to let the companies put “Acceptable Ads” in front of users when ad blocking software is turned on.
This is, without any doubt, a unprecedented move by the ad blocking software which is widely used to block irrelevant ads. It is a very popular extension for all top browsers like Google Chrome, FireFox and Microsoft Edge which blocks all types of ads from the website to make the user experience much more pleasant. It has also been criticized in the past by the bloggers and content creators for blocking non-obtrusive ads too and cutting their big chunk of revenue.
Good Ads vs Bad Ads?
Instead of stripping off all ads from the website for forever, the AdBlock Plus is hoping to replace the bad ads with good ads.
As per the classification of good and bad ads, the bad ads include anything which is too big, too ugly or too intrusive which essentially appear irrelevant to you. Whereas, the good ads are those which will be smaller in size and more subtle.
And it’s not all over. AdBlock Plus is also planning to launch a marketplace for good ads!
New Marketplace for Good Ads
Eyeo is planning to join the ad tech firm ComboTag as reported by The Wall Street Journal to create an automatic ad marketplace — often referred to as an ad exchange. This new marketplace will allow publishers and other website operators to sign up for the so-called “Acceptable Ads Platform”, and use it to sell and place ad space on their websites.
These so-called “Acceptable Ads” will be allowed to pass through the AdBlock Plus blocking filters by default, making sure they aren’t too large and intrusive to users, Eyeo added.
Ben Williams, AdBlock Plus operations and communications director said in a statement:
“It allows you to treat the two different ecosystems completely differently and monetize each one, and crucially, monetize the ad blockers on on their own terms.”
“Acceptable Ads” Program Extension
It’d be worth mentioning here that AdBlock Plus is already running a limited scope “Acceptable Ads” program back since 2011. The latest marketplace will be an extension of the existing program. Under this limited scope “Acceptable Ads” program, the AdBlock Plus allows ad blocker to classify selected ads as “whitelisted” so that they still appear even when user has the blocker turned on.
Eyeo hopes that, through this new marketplace, there’ll be a big surge in the usage of their so-called “Acceptable Ads”. Anyone would be able to sign up, put some code into their website and starting showing whitelisted ads. Contrary to other competitors such as Google, there will be no tracking of users from site to site and there will also be limitations on ads dimensions and page locations, as defined in AdBlock Plus guidelines.
“This could be the end-game of the popular software business model.”
According to the revenue model offered by Eyeo, publisher will get up to 80% of all ad revenue generated from the marketplace ads. Of the remaining 20% revenue, AdBlock Plus will receive 6% whereas remaining 14% will be divided among various other parties involved in distribution and maintenance of ads network.
The “Acceptable Ads” marketplace is currently in beta and will be launched at the end of this year. AdBlock Plus is working towards setting up a committee – supposed to be launched along with marketplace – of publishers, privacy advocates and advertisers to define the future guidelines for the “Acceptable Ads” program.
I’d rather argue that it could be the end-game of the popular ad blocking software business model. The biggest challenge for the AdBlock Plus would be to get acceptance from the users who don’t like to see any ads on the website. That is why they had installed it. This decision may face backlash and people may start looking for another ad blocking software.
What do you think? Is it an acceptable decision? I’d love to hear your feedback in comments.
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