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AdBlock Has a New Owner and No One Knows Who

Popular Chrome and Safari browser extension AdBlock has been quietly sold, and no one seems to know who the new owner is. Yesterday, users of AdBlock – rebranded from its former guise as AdBlock Plus – may have seen a pop-up announcing that, in contravention of the entire principle of the extension, that advertisers were now able to buy themselves on to the AdBlock whitelist, through EyeO’s acceptable advertising, allowing their adverts to circumvent the block. A footnote at the bottom of the post, though, revealed that AdBlock is under new ownership. The name of the new owner was not revealed.

Requests submitted to AdBlock, asking for the name of the new owner, have been met with a flat refusal, with the company revealing that the buyer wishes to remain anonymous. All the company was willing to reveal is that former CEO Michael Gundlach was no longer with AdBlock, the tool he created.

Couple the lack of transparency with the new policy of allowing rich companies to pay for their adverts to be forced upon AdBlock users, and we have a company that, within the space of a day, has done everything it can to erode the trust of its users.

Thank you The Next Web for providing us with this information.

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