Man Trying to Smash “All the Ad Blockers” After Google Loses $6.6 Billion in Advertising
Google has lost $6.6 billion in advertising revenue due to third-party ad-blocking software, such as AdBlock Plus. In an effort to tackle the problem and help companies like Google reclaim some of its lost advertising revenue, former Google employee Ben Barokas has set up a new company to smash “all the ad blockers”.
Barokas sold his advertising optimisation company Admeld to Google for $400 million in 2011, subsequently becoming its General Manager of Marketplace Development. He has now left the search engine giant, though, in favour of his new startup, Sourcepoint, which claims to have the technology bypass all ad blockers.
In an interview with Business Insider, Barokas lamented the practice of many ad blocking firms for charging companies to whitelist adverts, saying, “It’s blackmail. It’s extortion. It’s not fair.”
“That being said, [ad blocking] is not against the law, it’s legal in Germany, the US, the UK … but at the end of the day it’s also legal for publishers to give people messages and say you can choose ads. It’s not fair for journalists like you not to have food at your table, it’s not fair not to have a roof over your head. It goes back to transparency and fairness … if users opt-in to having advertising subsidizing the experience, we can serve that ad, [and if an ad blocker continues to block the ads] then that would be illegal.”
Barokas’ Sourcepoint will make the websites of its customers essentially ad block-proof, and even present visitors with ad-based browsing incentives, such as clicking on an ad to unlock an article or section of the site, turning ads into a kind of pseudo-paywall.
Thank you BGR for providing us with this information.
Since when are we given a choice to not having ads?
If it’s in the ToS then that’s bullshit, seeing as it’s either agree to the ToS or not be able to use it, or in a very limited capability.
And to claim that they “have the technology bypass all ad blockers” sounds a bit stupid as well. People will find a way around it, one side will make progress, the other side will catch up and over-take and vice versa.
Reason why its a claim lol
“We losing money guys. So from now on, we have decided adblockers to be illegal.”
It’s their own fault, ad’s became increasingly annoying.
popups,
Moving things that discract.
SOUND !!!!
I would be okay with allowing ads, if they went back to simple non sound non moving adds in on the page, not in a popup.
Their choice
Yep, ads are why I browse with muted speakers most of the time.
HAS LOST HOW??? DID THEY STEAL THEY MONEY??? USE THE RIGHT WORDS NOOBS.
” It’s not fair for journalists like you not to have food at your table” it’s 100% fair. That’s how the life is for people like you.
If I want an ad, I’ll try to find it.
The first thing I do on any computer I get is to install an ad block, ads have become way too intrusive, and if it hurts Google in the process then much better, I’m not very keen on them, and I try not to use any of their services.
i dont have ads.. i understand it gets profit to google etc but i find them intrusive and en-cumbersome .. let google have an ads/no ads option in their program/browser and give people the choice… no ads means no ads.. not lets sneak 1 or 2 in.. see how they fair then.. i am seriously sick of chrome now and am searching for one with less advertising and one more user friendly and considerate
Yep, and Task Manager doesn’t even show flash but instead a bunch of Chrome applications, so you could close what you actually want to see instead. Firefox is much better on that front but I strongly disapprove of their new options page.
i dont have ads.. i understand it gets profit to google etc but i find them intrusive and en-cumbersome .. let google have an ads/no ads option in their program/browser and give people the choice… no ads means no ads.. not lets sneak 1 or 2 in.. see how they fair then.. i am seriously sick of chrome now and am searching for one with less advertising and one more user friendly and considerate
See that? It took less than 10 minutes to block 532 adverts the other night, and while I was taking the screenshot and cropping it down, the total went up by another 16. THAT is why everybody uses ABP. Not fair? Make adverts interesting and engaging, and people might let them through the blockers. Adverts in a sidebar were acceptable, we could live with that, but then they started jumping out and popping up and blocking our view of the content. They began hijacking our browsers. The advertisers became TOO GREEDY and now they are paying the price. The users have finally been given a choice and they have made their decision clear – the advertisers DO NOT own the internet.
Right on man, they brought this upon themselves.
I see green icon next to Ad block plus. What is that green icon? Can you explain to me please?
I already had Ad block plus and Ghostery addon.
The green icon is Avast anti-virus, definitely recommended.
Precisely, the power of greed is unlimitless… Time to block more ads
All ads are always sucks big time. Reason why ads had hidden virus, spyware, malware, etc and infect everyone’s computer without warning. That is why ads are very bad and evil to steal people’s info.
Ad block plus and ghostery are way to go!
There’s a word for unwanted attention: harassment. If you take steps to deliberately avoid something and bypass those steps you’re just engaging in predatory behavior. I didn’t visit a certain page to view an obnoxious ad. If Google really wants to make up that lost revenue then why not expand Google Fiber to more locations? Comcast and Time Warner could really use the competition.