Ad blocker usage is up 30% — and a popular method publishers use to thwart it isn't working

Ad blocker usage surged 30% in 2016, according to a new report from PageFair, a company that helps publishers regain revenue lost to the software.
There were 615 million devices blocking ads worldwide by the end of 2016, 62% (308 million) of those mobile. Desktop ad blocker usage grew 17% year-on-year to 236 million.
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The largest geographical driver of mobile ad blocker use has been in the Asia-Pacific, where 94% of mobile ad blocking takes place.

http://www.businessinsider.com/pagefair-2017-ad-blocking-report-2017-1?r=US&IR=T&IR=T
https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport

Publishers are not detecting most ad blockers, says company behind new ad blocking solution

San Francisco-based Streamwize tested PageFair and several other detectors and found that they only see about 20 percent of ad blockers.

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Streamwize also tested detectors Oriel, SourcePoint and the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s open source detection script, although not as extensively as for PageFair. But the results thus far are essentially the same: they only see a small portion of the blockers.

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Specifically: Only Adblock Plus and Adblock Browser for Android were detected, while AdBlock, AdBlock Plus Content Blocker for iOS, Brave Browser, Ghostery, Opera desktop with built-in blocker, Opera Mini with built-in blocker, uBlock Origin and UC Browser went undetected.
If the tests are correct, then publishers are wildly underestimating the number of desktop and mobile site visitors that are employing ad blockers.
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Streamwize is releasing a new product Adtoniq.
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For every website, Adtoniq will try to load a secret ad it has placed with an ad network into its own ad unit that simulates an ad unit on the site. If it doesn’t load, there’s an ad blocker.

https://martechtoday.com/publishers-not-detecting-ad-blockers-says-company-behind-new-ad-blocking-solution-193058
http://www.adtoniq.com/

 

F**kAdblock! How Publishers are defeating ad blockers & how ad blockers are fighting back.

BusinessInsider uses piano.io’s VX product (“The evolution of the paywall”) for detecting ad blockers.
Piano.io, helpfully has some documentation on how to detect ad blockers using their or your own solution. Piano’s solution relies on the open-source library FuckAdblock. They use a safe for work alternate version called BlockAdblock, - “FuckAdBlock same project but with a more convenient name.”
FuckAdblock functions by injecting a dummy div into the webpage that contains css classes and styles that are common to advertisements. Then it performs a variety of checks to see if the div has been hidden from view. If it has, the user has an adblocker enabled.
BusinessInsider’s onpage JavaScript additionally checks to see if the FuckAdBlock js file failed to load, in which case it also detects the user as having an adblocker.
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Looking at uBlock Origin’s resources.txt file, you can see just how many custom JavaScript snippets are there neutralizing various web sites’ strategies to bypass ad blockers. It’s an intensive, manual process collecting, implementing and testing all those strategies, and it’s an unpaid job.
Ad blockers have traditionally only had to worry about removing ads while keeping a website functional- and that was difficult enough. Software that actively tries to detect them and disable the hosting website constitutes a new front in the advertising and privacy war, one that Ad Blockers currently seem to be losing.

http://blog.bugreplay.com/post/153861574674/fkadblock-how-publishers-are-defeating-ad#
https://piano.io/
https://fuckadblock.sitexw.fr/
https://github.com/sitexw/BlockAdBlock
 

Report: 32 percent of global page views now impacted by ad blocking

While some in the industry are alarmed by ad blocking others dismiss it as overblown, it continues to grow. The latest evidence comes from Blockmetry, a company started by former Googler Pierre Far.

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Blockmetry, tracks the percentage of page views blocked rather than the number of users adopting ad blocking. This metric, says Far, better reflects “ad blocking’s real impact on websites.”

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Worldwide ad blocking (page views) now stands at 32.4 percent, while analytics blocking is 5.2 percent. This means that 32 percent of all page views Blockmetry is monitoring globally witness ad blocking. That’s up from 28.5 percent in May. However analytics blocking has not grown as much; it was 5.1 percent in May.

http://marketingland.com/report-32-percent-global-page-views-now-impacted-ad-blocking-190459

https://blockmetry.com/ 

 

Yandex applies AI to filter annoying ads on Android, powered by user reports

Russia’s Yandex, which has just announced it’s adding a complaint button to its Android browser to lets users report ads they find annoying.

Filing an ad complaint will send a report to Yandex which will initiate custom ad filtering for that user, using machine learning technology to hone the individual model over time.
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It will also be feeding intel back to advertisers so they can “create more targeted and effective campaigns that are relevant to users, reducing the need to install ad blocking software”
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Yandex is initially adding the button to the alpha version of its Android browser but tells TechCrunch it’s planning to expand it to its browser on other platforms — although it has no timeline for that as yet. It claims a daily user-base of around five million across its mobile browsers.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/23/yandex-applies-ai-to-filter-annoying-ads-on-android-powered-by-user-reports/

Alibaba's Popular Ad-Blocking Web Browser Hits Bump in China

UC Browser, a web browser owned by China's Alibaba Group, has been a major factor in the spread of ad-blocking in Asia. It claims over 400 million active users, many of them mobile users in China and India. Ad-blocking is built right into its browsers.
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But UC Browser's vision of ad-free user experience has hit a roadblock in China, where the government is enacting new measures cracking down on ad blocking.
China's new advertising regulations prohibit applications or hardware to intercept, filter, cover, fast forward or limit other people's legitimate ads. The rule is vague, but the consensus among legal experts is that most or all forms of ad blocking will probably be banned.
http://adage.com/article/digital/alibaba-s-popular-ad-blocking-web-browser-hits-a-bump-china/305490/

The ad blockers publishers don't want you to know about

http://www.dailydot.com/debug/best-free-ad-blockers/

https://1blocker.com/

Facebook is all set to snub ad blockers by altering their own code

Ads on Facebook will now appear as sponsored content pieces, shielding them from ad blockers.

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Facebook has come up with a new way of displaying ads on the social media platform. As per a blogpost by the company, Facebook will now display ads in the garb of sponsored content, shielding them from various ad blockers.  

http://www.digit.in/internet/facebook-is-all-set-to-snub-ad-blockers-by-altering-their-own-code-31315.html

Flipboard - Topic - AdBlocking

https://flipboard.com/topic/adblocking

The Rise of the Anti-Ad Blockers

June 13, 2016 

 Anti-Ad Blockers -  PageFair, Sourcepoint, Secret Media and Admiral are among the companies currently in the market.

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Admiral’s products help websites show ads to users with ad-blockers enabled, Mr. Rua, said, by ensuring they’re loaded into webpages in ways that are undetectable to most ad-blocking software. This tactic is sometimes referred to as “ad reinsertion,” because it helps reinsert ads into web pages that otherwise would not have been displayed.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-the-anti-ad-blockers-1465805039

https://getadmiral.com/ 

 

 

One Side In the Ad-Blocker Wars Is Doomed

The current hysteria over ad blockers reminds me of the hysteria over TiVo when it first arrived in 1999—which itself was just an updated version of the hysteria over VCRs back in the 80s. If people can record shows, they'll skip the ads! We're doomed!

But no. TV ad revenue has been surprisingly stable since 1999 despite a decline in viewership. The big problem, it turns out, isn't the ad skippers, it's the number of people watching TV in the first place. I suspect the same is true of online journalism. Ad blockers aren't the problem, readership is. Provide a well-targeted audience and advertisers will pay for it. The folks who skip the ads probably weren't very good sales prospects anyway.
https://flipboard.com/topic/advertising/one-side-in-the-ad-blocker-wars-is-doomed/f-b059602d9e%2Fmotherjones.com

The Cost of Mobile Ads on 50 News Websites

OCT. 1, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/01/business/cost-of-mobile-ads.html

Ranked: The 37 hottest pre-IPO ad tech startups of 2016

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-37-hottest-pre-ipo-ad-tech-companies-2016-5?IR=T

Report: There are now more people blocking ads on mobile than on desktop

Research from PageFair — a technology company that makes its money by providing ad blocking solutions to publishers — and mobile data company Priori Data estimates there are at least 419 million people blocking ads on smartphones worldwide.
PageFair estimated last year that there are 198 million desktop ad blocker users.
The most common way of blocking ads on smartphones is through browsers which block ads by default, according to PageFair, which estimates 408 million people used an ad blocking browser in March 2016.
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 Mobile ad blocking is driven by users in emerging markets. PageFair claims 36% of smartphone users in Asia-Pacific are blocking ads on the mobile web.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/pagefair-mobile-ad-blocking-report-2016-5

Ad-block software is approaching 200 million users -- here's how publishers are reacting

Ad-block software usage may be more common than previously thought. There are nearly 200 million monthly active users (MAU) of ad-block software globally, according to data from a new study by PageFair and Adobe included in our latest ad-blocking report.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/ad-blocking-software-has-200-million-users-v2-2016-4

Piano’s new Composer makes it easy for publishers to create a targeted paywall experience

Publisher tools and paywall company Piano is announcing a new tool that could give publishers more freedom to experiment with paywalls and other business models.

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The new Composer tool seems like a direct extension of that idea, offering a drag-and-drop interface where publishers can create different rules that tailor the reader experience to different audience segments.

So based on things like a user’s device, location, value to advertisers and use of ad blockers, a publisher can present them with different kinds of subscription offers and/or restrict their access after they’ve read or watched a certain amount of content.

http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/14/piano-launches-composer/ 

https://piano.io/composer/

Shine, but not rise

Most importantly, last month Three, a big mobile operator, announced that it is planning to install ad-blocking technology in its British and Italian networks.

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But on closer inspection, it is too soon to write the obituary of mobile advertising, says Dean Bubley, a telecoms consultant. More than half the time, smartphone users connect to the internet using Wi-Fi, so they will still get ads even if their mobile operator blocks them. What is more, the fastest-growing sort of mobile advertising is “native”, meaning indistinguishable from other types of content, and sometimes even encrypted. That makes network-based blocking hard, if not impossible.

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Then there are legal and commercial hurdles. Three is planning to let subscribers opt into its ad-blocking service, which is based on technology developed by Shine, an Israeli startup. But that may still run afoul of “network neutrality” rules, which require that all sorts of online traffic, including ads, should be treated equally. To be on the safe side, the service is likely to be offered directly through Shine. 

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21695390-ad-blocking-may-not-quickly-spread-smartphones-shine-not-rise 

 

Microsoft is developing an in-built ad blocker for its Edge browser

Microsoft has announced that it expects to have “built-in ad blocking features” in the next version of its Edge browser, according to ZDNet.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/edge-browser-to-have-built-in-ad-blocker-2016-3 

Två Adblock-krossare går ihop för att bli ännu starkare

För att bättre kunna leverera sina Adblock-krossar-system till marknaden har företagen Adaptive Media och AdSupply gått samman.
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Förra året lanserade AdSupply tjänsten BlockIQ som enligt dem själva såg till att över 1 000 publicister kunde leverera sin reklam utan att störas av reklamblockerare. 
http://www.dagensanalys.se/2016/03/tva-adblock-krossare-gar-ihop-for-att-bli-annu-starkare/

Reminisciences of an AdTech Operator

F-Secure’s Mikko Hypponen, are advising users to stay safe by using ad blockers, suggest that the future of ad blocking has little to do with poor quality creative or invasive ad formats. Motivation of users have already started shifting from mere blocking of annoying ads, to blocking malicious codes delivered potentially inside any ad.
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These structural issues, namely the ways in which 3rd-party tags are allowed on ad calls, and the way tags are allowed to live inside other tags in a nested manner, are at the heart of the threat the advertising technology industry now finds itself as the basis for. 
http://thankyouforadblocking.com/
http://thankyouforadblocking.com/ad-blocking-references/