Facebook declares war on ad blockers
Facebook plans to use technical measures to circumvent ad blockers in the future. At the same time, the world's largest social network announced new tools that will allow users to decide for themselves which ads they want to see and which they don't.
Facebook manager Andrew Bosworth acknowledged in a blog post that there are currently many bad online ads. "Ads that obscure content we want to read, ads that increase load times, or ads that try to sell us things we're not interested in." Facebook wants to remedy this, he said. Users would be provided with advanced ad settings. For example, if users aren't interested in cats, they shouldn't receive ads for cat food in the future. Facebook did not disclose how the undoing of ad blockers will work technically. Bypassing the ad blockers affects the use of Facebook on a desktop computer or laptop. Such blockers do not currently play a role in Facebook's mobile apps.
Criticism of providers
Facebook manager Bosworth also criticized the practice of ad blocker operators collecting money for allowing previously blocked ads. "At best, this practice creates confusion, but it also lowers the resources needed to fund journalism and other free services we use on the Internet." Facebook is among those free services, Bosworth said.
Advertising revenue is by far the most important source of income for Facebook. They brought the company $6.2 billion in the second quarter, 62 percent more than in the same quarter last year. At the same time, the number of people worldwide with ad blockers has more than tripled in the last two and a half years.
Threat also for media
The blocking of online advertising by apps like "Adblock Plus" is also a thorn in the side of many media companies, because if everyone has an ad blocker, the advertising customer no longer pays. How many Internet users in Switzerland use a Bocker is not known. In Germany, the figure is around a quarter. As part of a survey conducted by the news agency SDA last fall, the media company Tamedia said that adblockers were still less widespread in Switzerland than in other countries. The Grisons-based media house Somedia estimated the proportion of readers with ad blockers at less than ten percent. But in this country, too, the programs seem to be becoming more popular: Readers are installing adblockers to an increasing extent, said the NZZ. And Ringier wrote that adblocking was a challenge that would occupy the publisher even more in the future. In Germany, the Axel Springer publishing house caused a stir last October. It automatically blocked editorial content on the Bild.de portal for users with ad blockers. (SDA)
