Ablock Plus have announced that they will start replacing advertisements with their own “more acceptable” ads, prompting backlash from its users online.
The ad-blocking software, which has previously removed all adverts from its users’ screens, will now show people its own sold and curated “acceptable adverts,” where Adblock Plus will take 6 per cent of the ad revenue.
“The AAP [Acceptable Ads Platform] will offer a feedback mechanism embedded in each ad, which will let you say whether you thought that particular ad was great, good, bad or complete shit. This feedback will then figure into which ads get selected on a live auction,” explained Adblock Plus in a post on their official blog.
This feedback mechanism, in turn, sets the stage for the second AAPbenefit, making the real-time bidding process (RTB) better by making it more human RTB is the process by which ad inventory is bought and sold in real time on ad exchanges. It literally takes milliseconds for winners to be crowned on an auction, then appear on your page; which ads appear to you in particular is normally based upon a number of criteria, many of which are based upon tracking.
Not on ours.
Our platform will turn this model on its head, because instead of basing the auction winners on algorithms trying to figure out where you live, whether you like cool ranch or nacho cheese or where you just went on vacation, our system pick winners based on real feedback from realhuman beings, like you! No one does it this way, at least till now.
“It allows you to treat the two different ecosystems completely differently and monetize each one,” said Adblock Plus’ operations and communications director, Ben Williams. “And crucially, monetize the ad blockers on their own terms.”
The response to Adblock Plus’ Acceptable Ads Platform has been largely negative, with one user comparing it to “taking medicine for something, only to have that medicine not cure you of the advertised sickness.”
“I have been using your software for a long time. Now thanks to this, I have uninstalled it forever and have installed another one,” declared another user on the company’s official blog. “What you guys are doing is like selling condoms that guarantee ‘acceptable’ pregnancies. No thanks.”
In August, Adblock Plus and Facebook engaged in a digital spat after the social network announced that ad-blockers would soon be rendered useless on the platform.
“Rather than paying ad blocking companies to unblock the ads we show — as some of these companies have invited us to do in the past — we’re putting control in people’s hands with our updated ad preferences and our other advertising controls,” declared Facebook, before Adblock Plus responded with an update that showed users how to override Facebook’s new ad-block deterrent.
“As many of you know, the filter lists that ‘tell’ Adblock Plus what to block are in fact the product of a global community of web citizens,” taunted Adblock Plus in their response last month. “This time that community seems to have gotten the better of even a giant like Facebook.”
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington and Gab @Nash, or like his page at Facebook.
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