The Wall Street Journal:
Eyeo GmbH, the company behind popular desktop ad-blocking tool Adblock Plus, now accepts payment from around 70 companies in exchange for letting their ads through its filter. Eyeo stipulates that they must comply with its “acceptable ads” policy, meaning their ads aren’t too disruptive or intrusive to users. In total, ads from some 700 companies meet the acceptable ads policy, an Eyeo spokesman said.
Eyeo is now reaching out to developers of other ad-blocking tools to cut deals that allow certain ads to pass ads through their filters, too, in exchange for payment.
(Dean) Murphy (who created Crystal, an application to help users block ads on Apple Inc.’s mobile devices) said he has taken Eyeo up on its offer, and plans to implement an option within his app whereby “acceptable” ads will be displayed to users. The feature will be switched on by default, Mr. Murphy said, and he will receive a flat monthly fee from Eyeo in return.
This is a predictable situation and it will only get worse or better depending on your point of view.
Time to block AdBlock Plus!
Pretty soon, they’ll add an in-app purchase to block allowed ads, then they’ll sell a premium tier to ad companies to show ads to those who purchased the extra blocker, then they’ll add another premium in-app purchase…
Leaving aside the concerns as described by Jonathan Guenther above (or below), I’d be a little concerned that the definition of “acceptable ads” is in the hands of a third party.
The developer of Crystal doesn’t mention anywhere on the app’s website or App Store page (yet, as of this writing) that his blocker doesn’t block everything. New policy? Perhaps, btu he should have edited the app’s descriptions when he knew he was going to be interviewed and when he decided to use Eyeo.
That’s even worse than Marco Arment pulling Peace, IMHO.
Apple has already horribly blown this.
When you manage something properly, nobody notices.
“…plans to implement…”
It’s not in yet
That’s really the only way to do this. People have been saying “Yeah, but The Deck is OK!” but… most people simply don’t know ad networks and which are awesome, which suck and which are somewhere in between. Ghostery on the desktop lets you block per network and I think 1Blocker on iOS does this, but again… how do people know what to block?
Ideally, ad networks would have to declare what they do in machine readable format and we could then choose the level of stuff we’re OK with but… yeah, not happening.
Apple has to put a stop to this.
You know, I only want to block the obnoxious ads. The pop ups, slide overs, false dismissibles, autoplay video, app store auto redirects. That’s about it. I don’t mind the rest. I want to block the stuff that wrecks the function of devices.
I have a sneaking suspicion that an adblocker that allows admakers to pay to break through is a corruptible path.
I kind of want an app that takes my Ghostery configuration on my Mac and applies that to my iOS Safari. I like that SafariBlocker on iOS is customizable, but right now feels far beyond my ability. I need a much more “whack-a-mole” design. I’m hoping Safari Blocker gets some polish.
more nonsense. this has jack to do with Apple, and everything to do with advertisers and consumers.
do you ever get tired of trolling Apple sites?
Just refunded Crystal.
Put a stop to what? Whether you agree with it or not, they’re not doing anything that’s against Apple’s TOS.
Especially when a fee is involved.
Advertiser:”Will twice as much money make this add acceptable?”
Ad Blocker:”Yes, twice as much money is quite acceptable.”
Totally! How is an ad-blocker allowing some ads through for money Apple’s fault? If a user installs an adblocker and that adblocker lets through ads, the user can either accept that or delete it and try another adblocker.
Apple is just trying to level that playing filed and the ad guys are going to fight to the bitter end to maintain their livelihood. Apple holds a lot of leverage here, but they can’t block the content creators, lest they want no content for their devices.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Now called the e-sieve.
That means nothing. Apple is indirectly responsible and Apple is the one who is going to get blamed for opening this blackmail opportunity.
Nonsense.
Still, a minor distinction. If he has these plans, he should announce them on the app’s iTunes description and in the FAQ on the app’s webpage at least so that people who are going to spend money (however little the amount) can make a fully informed decision. It sounds as if he has had these plans if he is able to say so in an interview, so the edits should already be there.
And that’s the way to send the message to the developer and Apple at the same time. If an app is not as described in their store, Apple will pull it and require changes before putting it back..
Nonsense that Apple will be blamed for this???????
Eh. I don’t disagree much but do we hold devs to pre announcing things on their product pages? How far in advance? What if he decides not to do this after feedback?
Just tried “1Blocker” and it leaves the Deck alone while blocking more obnoxious ads. It also leaves comment systems alone which was a peeve with other blockers. It’s free for this functionality, but won’t also block trackers unless you upgrade.
Still waiting for a blocker that works similar to Ghostery and lets me block individual networks. If the API doesn’t allow this, then hoping Apple improves this soon. Honestly it doesn’t feel that well thought out and that Apple is still testing the waters with this.
I think we all get the “we need ads to pay the bills on the sites you love” line. What we hate, despise, get worked up about are ads that destroy the sites we love.
So if Adblock et al can encourage advertiser and sites to ensure ads are put in their place then we’d all be a lot more happier. Until then, we are just going to block, block, block until they figure out.