Amazon, Google and Microsoft all reportedly pay to circumvent AdBlock Plus

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,240   +192
Staff member

google microsoft amazon adblock ads advertising

With more than 300 million downloads and 50 million active monthly users, AdBlock Plus is among the top tools web surfers use to block intrusive or otherwise annoying online advertising.

It’s been around for ages and we’ve known for some time that the service maintains a whitelist that lets small blogs and websites get a free pass while certain advertisers can squeak by for a nominal fee. The paid whitelisting is, after all, how the company generates revenue to sustain its existence.

A new report from the Financial Times ousts a handful of paying advertisers and the names likely won’t surprise you.

Those that pay to join the whitelist are said to include Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Taboola. The deals are confidential but according to one source that didn’t want to be named, Eyeo – the German-based company that makes AdBlock Plus – commands a fee equivalent to 30 percent of ad revenues that a company would make from otherwise blocked ads.

Amazon and Google declined to comment on the matter while Microsoft provided a canned response that hardly addresses the matter.

It’s worth pointing out that AdBlock Plus’ use of the whitelist is optional although highly recommended. By allowing some ads to get through, users get to support sites that reply on advertising but do so in a non-intrusive way.

Permalink to story.

 
There are at lease over 40 ad tracking sites that dump cookies through the browser. If you go by the URL, IP, DNS you'll see multi-IP addresses. They really don't care how they get you. Google owns and runs ad doubleclick bla, bla. Don't know how they all get away with this. Mircosoft does it with Windows 8.1. They don't want us to block the ads. Android tablets, smartphone an etc. always had this ads. Sure you could block if the Android device was rooted. Google doesn't want you to blocks either.

When it comes to Smartphones like Windows 8.1 ads are in the apps you download, Android same. We should have the option to disable all ads on our devices.

Now to learn that ABP has a whitelist for Google, Microsoft and Amazon. Really a shame.
 
Uhm.. adblockplus has an OPTION that reads "allow unobtrusive ads..."
If you are too *************ing lazy to check a single checkbox to not see those ads from reputable companies and then complain about how adblock is a sellout you sirs, FAIL.

The whole idea behind adblock plus is to block malicious BS ads that pop up all kinda of "zomg click this or your computer will explode in 30 seconds!!!" ads that trick dumb people to get malware on their computers.
The idea was never to strip every ad from all websites.
 
I don't mine so called helpful ads, such as when you are browsing a site, looking at a certain item, and it says something like "people who viewed this, also looked at this".
What I don't like are the ones that have absolutely nothing to do with anything and just show up, or as you are getting ready to click on something they show up and you click on them. The ones that REALLY annoy me are the ones that when you go to a site, such as a news site, pop up forcing you to X them out before you can do anything else.
 
The ones that REALLY annoy me are the ones that when you go to a site, such as a news site, pop up forcing you to X them out before you can do anything else.

How about the ones that disguise themselves as Download links or "Next" arrows? The people behind that should be beaten with a garden hose.
 
Stop giving us annoying ads and blocking our content and redirecting us and we will think about unblocking the ads on the site.
 
Dont use AdBlock Plus then, just use normal AdBlock, there are two main variants, one takes a back hander, the other doesnt.
 
I've had AdBlock pretty much since it came out, and I've grown used to the Internet looking nice and clean, and not having to deal with things like ads on videos and whatnot. It really shocks me when I go on a computer without AdBlock; the sites will load immensely slow (even with similar Internet speeds and computer resources as what I have at home), and look absolutely disgusting when you toss in ads underneath the site's navbar, on both sides of the content, and above the footer of the webpage. AdBlock is something I'll support until the end of time, because advertisers have gone way too far.
 
Ccleaner removes adblock plus in FF, very lame, I do not mind none intrusive ads but yahoo and other pop ads are atrocious
 
I've had AdBlock pretty much since it came out, and I've grown used to the Internet looking nice and clean, and not having to deal with things like ads on videos and whatnot. It really shocks me when I go on a computer without AdBlock; the sites will load immensely slow (even with similar Internet speeds and computer resources as what I have at home), and look absolutely disgusting when you toss in ads underneath the site's navbar, on both sides of the content, and above the footer of the webpage. AdBlock is something I'll support until the end of time, because advertisers have gone way too far.

Try uBlock. It uses ABP filters and my performance seems better than with ABP -- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock
 
AdBlockPlus has become the Web's biggest organized extortion with its whitelisting fees.
 
I switched over to privacy badger last year and have been quite happy with it, I also like to support the EFF
just my 2 cents :)
 
Lets see .. remove extensions.. ad block plus.. and done.. buh bye..
I don't know about you, but even with the handshaking, my general web browsing experience is so much nicer with AdBlock Plus. I'd rather wear armor with holes than no armor at all.
 
I used ABP on my phone but I think it affected my internet connection so I took it off. It didn't bother me much because I very seldom use my phone to browse the web. On my desktop where I constantly use my Chrome browser I use AdBlock, Ghostery, AVG DNT, AdDetector and AdBlock for YouTube, they're all browser extensions all downloaded from the Google web store and I never see a single ad whatsoever. Some site do beseech me to disable my blockers but it's very easy to ignore them. Just on YouTube alone I block well over 40 ad's for each visit. My chronic aversion to ad's saves me a ton of expensive data every month.
 
Of the websites that I regularly visit, Techspot ads are the WORST for causing huge, long pauses while ads load.

Ironic to see this article here.

Even more ironic that ads on Techspot now appear as if they were posts.

This website is just about to be deleted from my favourites.

Let's see if this post gets censored as often happens with unapproved posts by the propaganda masters here.
 
What's really amusing is people also forget, another handy extension which is NoScript. You can basically pick and choose, what sites load even ad-related sites are blocked unless you allow it. Whitelist specific portions of the site, or just let the pages load without all the bloat. If you're wanting to allow ads on some pages, you can fine tune the list along with ABP.

So what if Google and others, get slipping past ABP? I don't see any of the bloat from those sites, I block across all sites using said services with one simple option. If I'm wanting to opt into ads, say for a particular YouTube or Twitch channel, then simply allow it on ABP. Might need to allow certain other sites, but between both you have a powerful combination of tools.
 
Hmmm, OUR content is the problem. Till you all pay for it in whatever fashion that is, it's their content. Hence the tollbooth.
 
Of the websites that I regularly visit, Techspot ads are the WORST for causing huge, long pauses while ads load.

Ironic to see this article here.

Even more ironic that ads on Techspot now appear as if they were posts.

This website is just about to be deleted from my favourites.

Let's see if this post gets censored as often happens with unapproved posts by the propaganda masters here.

Clearly you didn't observe the Tim Cook thread a few months back...
 
Over time, I've constructed my own block list for ABP, and whenever I've installed ABP in a new browser, I always tell it what to do with its whitelist. It is optional, not mandatory, so unless ABP makes it mandatory, I'll continue to use it.
 
Back