The company that developed the popular Adblock Plus software, Eyeo GmbH, started selling advertisements on Tuesday, Sept. 13.
AdBlock Plus Now Sells Ads
In a controversial move, Eyeo GmbH is starting to sell ads, the very thing many of its users hate. Business Wire reports that the company has launched on Tuesday, Sept. 13, a self-service platform to sell "pre-whitelisted" advertisements that meet its criteria for "acceptable ads." This new ads system will allow online publishers drag and drop ads that meet Eyeo GmbH 's expectations for labeling and size.
According to The Verge, this is a change in policy for the popular Adblock Plus that now is hoping to just replace the bad ads rather than stripping all ads from the internet. In the category of bad ads are judged those advertisements that the ads blocker deems too ugly, too big or too intrusive. They will be replaced with good ads, ones that are less annoying, subtler and smaller.
The new ad policy will be implemented through an ad marketplace that will allow website and blogs operators to choose out so-called "acceptable" ads and give them a place on their internet pages. In case that a visitor using Adblock Plus comes to the page, instead of whatever ads the site normally run, they'll be shown only those "acceptable ads,"
According to Ars Technica, Till Faida, co-founder of Adblock Plus, said that the Acceptable Ads Platform will help online publishers to use ad blockers in order to show an alternative, nonintrusive ad experience to their users. The Adblock Plus tool will provide publishers a way to implement Acceptable Ads themselves.
The advantage of the new ads policy for online publishers is that the ones who place the new ads will know that they won't be blocked by the Adblock Plus tool that has around 100 million users. The default setting of the software allows for "acceptable ads" to be shown. According to tech experts, it is estimated that more than 90 percent of Adblock Plus users do not change that default setting.