Microsoft, Google, Others Threaten to Sue Adblock Plus Creator

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frogboy

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Publisher group plans legal action to eliminate ad blockers

A French group of publishers, including top names such as Microsoft and Google, are planning to sue developers of ad-blocking software because of the impact that their solutions have on their web-based solutions.

Ad blockers have grown a lot in popularity lately, and Adblock Plus is the living example that such an application can really enjoy a terrific success if it comes with an effective engine and easy-to-use options.

At this point, Adblock Plus alone has no less than 5 million users in France, approximately 2 million in the United Kingdom, and 1.5 million in Spain. According to Times of India stats, no less than 144 million users worldwide are now turning to Adblock Plus in search for cleaner browsing, up 69 percent from the year before.

The success registered by Adblock Plus leads to more surprising figures: depending on a number of factors, including the visited website, up to 60 percent of the Internet users installed such an application to block ads.
Publishers looking for ways to block these apps
As a result of the growing appetite for ad blockers, French publishers, including Microsoft, Google, and local online newspapers, are threatening to sue companies developing such applications, hoping that such a decision would lead to fewer users deploying such solutions.

Some of these websites are entirely backed with funds generated from online ads, so the bigger the number of users who block the ads, the lower the income generated by each webpage.

Online publication L'Equipe, which is one of the companies that could file a legal complaint against ad-blocking app developers, decided to restrict access to its website for users who are running such programs on their computers.

"Unauthorized access. L'Equipe.fr is funded by advertising, which allows us to offer you free content,” the message provided to users with Adblock Plus installed reads.

Xavier Spender, deputy managing director of L'Equipe group, says that users can get rid of ads if they pay for a premium subscription, but as long as they go for the freeware version, advertisements need to be displayed in order to generate revenues.
Up to 40 percent loss in online advertising
There's no doubt that ad blockers indeed reduce publishers' revenues, and Laure de Lataillade, CEO of GESTE, a company that represents publishers in several industry sectors, claims that this loss sometimes reaches 40 percent. All because of third-party apps that users install to block ads, she says.

Some, however, are wondering if the ad model employed by these websites is actually at fault for this drop, as in many of the cases, users need to turn to such applications in order to make sure that they're not attacked with ads once they load a page.

Of course, it's a lot easier to install a free software solution and browse your favorite websites without being spammed with ads all over the place, so publishers need to take this into consideration before starting a legal action against ad-blocker tool developers
 

ElectricSheep

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Aug 31, 2014
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Oh dear... They're crying cause Adblock Plus is losing them money.
When will they realise that some people just don't want to get a faceful of adverts everywhere they go.
It should be up to the user to choose whether or not they see ads rather than have them foisted upon the poor soul...
 
S

Sr. Normal

upload_2014-12-10_13-45-2.png

On this page are working uBlock and Ghostery.

Must be understood as trading policy. It is the price of free products.

Want a search engine ?, accepts advertising or DuckDuckGo .
Want to enjoy online newspaper ?, more publicity.
Want to participate in a forum ?, we also have something for you.

The things cost and somehow it is necessary to finance them and then it is to want to gain money since there a company is doing "free" programs to you.

Finally Microsoft. Like we say in the country", "he sodomized you and you still have to apologize for giving the back"
 

Petrovic

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Several internet giants and media publishers, (Google, Microsoft and Le Figaro newspaper included), are threatening legal actions against the developers of software that blocks ads from reaching consumers.

This is, obviously, a problem for websites that rely on internet advertsing as the internet becomes more and more popular.

Japan Today writes that a quarter of the $545 billion (£348 billion) spent on global advertising this year went on digital ads, however, with digital ads being present everywhere, the popularity of ad blocking software has grown substantially.

In the beginning, apps like these were unknown to the general public, and were used only by a handfull of tech-savy individuals.

Now, it’s a different story.

Adblock Plus, the most popular ad blocking browser addon, has nearly five million active users in France, two million in the United Kingdom and 1.5 million in Spain.

According to a September report from Adobe software developer, Adblock boasts 144 million active users worldwide, up 69 per cent in a year.

The publishers, whose revenue depends mostly on digital ads, find these results alarming, and are considering legal actions.

“This is no small matter; it affects all publishers. Our members have lost an estimated 20 to 40 per cent of their advertising revenue,” said Laure de Lataillade, CEO of GESTE, an association of web publishers in gaming, media, music and other domains.

Sean Blanchfield, CEO of PageFair, compared the campaign against ad blockers to Napster’s demise: “They should instead learn from the Napster story that the users will ultimately get what they want,” said Blanchfield.

The problem has encouraged Google to launch an alternative to web advertising, called Google Contributor. It charges users between $1 and $3 a month to be spared ads, with the fee going to the affected websites.

The idea is currently being tested on sites like Mashable, The Onion and Science Daily.
 

jamescv7

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Mar 15, 2011
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I understand the problem of those company that provides advertisement, however the use of adblocker helps the user to browse efficiently without any disturbances.

However it doesn't mean everything were lost, of course not all users prefer adblocker therefore revenues are still there but not as actual to be expected. ;)
 

FreddyFreeloader

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Jul 23, 2013
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Microsoft has their own adblock for Internet Explorer - Tracking Protection with several lists you can subscribe to. I'm using the Fanboy.co.nz/adblock list. Is Microsoft going to sue themselves? :p
 

Raul90

Level 14
Feb 5, 2012
658
I seem to have read somewhere that before this AdBlock Plus issue there was this Adguard that was removed from GooglePlay stores. Google/Microsoft and all of their gang really is really do not care about the users but only what they can get from them.
 

Tani

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Nov 25, 2014
402
Adds are every where several pop ups, several unsuitable adds many times, if adds were organized in a clean way I wouldn't have bothered to install such applications.
Even if such applications are blocked I'll be using manual ways to block advertisements from the unsuitable sources.
 
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