People are declaring war on pop-ups, commercials and advertising by installing ad-blocking software to keep commercials at bay as they browse the web.
But internet ads are not going down without a fight.
In a game of cat and mouse, news sites and other online publishers are blocking the ad-blockers in ways large, small, and nearly always passive-aggressive.
Thanks to software that can detect whether a site visitor is using a blocker, websites can now direct messages at these readers, jam ads through to them anyway or even withhold stories. Uneasy publishers are increasingly turning to startups that give them the ability to detect and pierce through ad blockers, such as Sourcepoint and Pagefair.
The Washington Post is stepping up its defenses by actively striking back at ad blockers. The newspaper is testing out a feature that stops readers with ad blockers enabled from viewing an article until they agree to sign up for an email newsletter or subscribe.
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"Many people already receive our journalism for free online, and in the long run, without income via subscriptions or advertising, we won’t be able to deliver the journalism that people coming to our site expect from us," Post spokesperson Kristine Coratti Kelly said in an email.
Publishers have good reason to be wary: A widely cited report from Adobe and anti-ad blocker startup Pagefair estimates that ad blockers could cost the industry $21.8 billion in lost revenue this year — though the figure may have been overinflated by faulty economic reasoning — and that usage grew 41% in the last year.
Worse yet, when Apple's iOS 9 software update hits iPhones next week, Safari users — anestimated 50% of mobile web surfers in the U.S. — will be able to shut out mobile ads by simply flipping a setting and downloading an app.
Bargaining comes before acceptance
The goal, according to Sourcepoint CEO Ben Barokas, is to reach an understanding between reader and publisher.
Ideally, ad block users, could opt to pay for their content in other ways, like viewing less intrusive ads or buying a subscription.
We are entering this phase where the conversation is 'Hey, we're the publisher, we'd love to give you content, please choose how'd you'd like to compensate us'," Barokas said. "We're in this era of transparency and an unlimited amount of options."
But the proposal alone is hopelessly optimistic unless advertisers get more aggressive, he says.
"We have seen that this is very ineffective unless coupled with a content block and offering other choices," Barokas said in an email. "It's few and far between that ONLY appealing to their good will is enough to modify users' behavior."
Indeed, last year, Ireland-based PageFair reported that only .33% of the 576 different targeted appeals it ran on 220 websites convinced visitors to exempt the site from an ad blocker. Of those that did, one third eventually backtracked on the decision.
A quick Twitter search reveals that many ad block users don't seem to be taking much pity on these types of pleas. Some see the software as an ideological stand against the obnoxious, and sometimes even malicious, ads that flood the web, and know full well the stakes of their decision without an entreaty from a website.
Other sites, including the Atlantic, The Guardian, Mother Jones and the NFL sites have taken a gentler approach, prodding visitors to instead make a donation, subscribe to the publication or whitelist the site.
The Atlantic:
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The Guardian:
Mother Jones:
NFL:
Others, like the gaming sites Newgrounds and The Tech Game, try to add a bit more levity with pictures of sad kittens or options to shrug the message off.
Earlier this week, there was a lot of commotion over reports that YouTube was punishing ad block users by removing the "skip" option from pre-roll ads until a Chrome developer pointed out that it was actually an inadvertent glitch in the browser code that affected all extensions.
Ad block users have also claimed that other video sites like Hulu and the CW bar ad block users from streaming, though Hulu seems to have since found a way to circumvent the blockers.
With the momentum of ad block user growth showing no signs of slowing, expect these tactics to get even more heated as ad blockers cut deeper into online profits.
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