An ad blocker as the savior of online advertising?

Many users are very critical of online advertising and use ad blockers.The numbers speak for themselves: Internet users are no longer willing to accept intrusive advertising on the web. Over 144 million people worldwide use an adblocker for a variety of reasons. For many, online advertising is simply too intrusive. But tracking methods also make users feel that their privacy is being violated. Finally, the flood of online advertising with more and more videos also reduces performance when surfing the Internet. The following video illustrates the problem in a funny way:

Whitelist for acceptable online advertisingThe German company Eyeo Gmbh, of all people, whose successful ad blocker Adblock Plus has already been downloaded more than 350 million times since 2006, is offering a solution for publishers and users with its "Initiative for Acceptable Advertising". The idea: users can whitelist selected websites and advertising networks that offer "Acceptable Ads". The criteria for these acceptable online ads were developed by Adblock Plus in months of work together with its open source community. The exact conditions can be found here 76 percent of Adblock Plus users are willing to accept non-disruptive online advertising," said Chairman Tim Schumacher at the digital conference re:publica in Berlin. "So users are not generally against online advertising and also realize that publishers have to make money. But advertising has become so intrusive that many opt for an ad blocker out of 'self-defense'."Over 400 publishers already on boardSo far, more than 400 publishers are on the whitelist, according to Schumacher. Adblock Plus receives about 50 applications per month. Most applications are processed for free, but the larger publishers have to pay to be on the list. In addition to high-reach sites like Reddit.com, advertising agencies like Jung von Matt and the Art Directors Club also support the initiative.Protection racket of the ad blocker?However, the Adblock Plus offering has met with fierce criticism, particularly from publishers. For example, Zeit Online and Handelsblatt.com filed a lawsuit to stop the development and sale of the ad blocker. The "Acceptable Ads" program was compared to "protection rackets. However, the lawsuit was recently dismissed by the Hamburg Regional Court (read more hereJens Ihlenfeld, CEO of SysEleven, pointed out further problems in his presentation at re:publica. On the one hand, the "Acceptable Ads" attract much less attention from the user. On the other hand, he said, the Adblocker particularly affects those sites that already follow strict guidelines internally when it comes to online advertising.More on the Adblock Plus initiative can be found at hereMore about the digital conference re:publica, which takes place from May 5 to 7 in Berlin, can be found here. here.Author: Simon Wolanin