Adblock Plus launches marketplace for ‘acceptable ads’

Ghostery sells its aggregate blocking data to website owners and ad publishing networks as a way to monitor the performance of their sites and ads. It is a business based on creating and placing ads after all, not blocking them.

Publishers wanting to use the Acceptable Ads Platform need to integrate a tag onto their page to start using it.

The Acceptable Ads Platform launches in beta today and will fully launch this fall. However, the entire process would take weeks to endorse, not to mention the fact that sites had to pay an ad-blocking service to show ads. But how does one tell the difference between a good ad and a bad ad?

Adblock Plus makes money by charging large companies – including Google, Amazon, Criteo, and Taboola – a fee to get their ads whitelisted. ABP developer Eyeo has been working to hammer out policies that would allow (depending on user settings) for the display of ads that would not be overly intrusive, distracting, or pose a security threat to readers. “If users complain about it for whatever reason – it was ugly, it was intrusive, it was creepy – it gets punished on the auction”, the blog added. This included publications from Times of India Group, HT Media, NDTV Group among others. It provides them with the required tools to enable them to implement Acceptable Ads themselves.

And in terms of the criticism that AdBlock Plus is pivoting to now sell ads to people who have shown a disdain for advertising by downloading a blocker?

It’s no secret publishers are trying to solve the problem of monetising their digital content, most of which is still done via digital advertising. Basically, instead of waging a war on ads on the internet, the plugin will replace the obstructive, annoying and intrusive ads with more subtle, smaller and less annoying ads.

It will be interesting to see if this prompts any developments in ABP’s long-running battle with the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which once referred to Adblock Plus as a “mendacious coven of techie wannabes”.

Popular adblocking software Adblock Plus has taken a few by surprise today by launching its own ad-tech platform for publishers.

Basically, the move completes AdBlock Plus’ transition from a service ostensibly about blocking ads to one that only blocks obnoxious ads or those services not willing to pony up for the privilege. New brands, new people and new journalism.

And the hope is that this new merging of ideas helps advertisers become more creative in the ways they engage with the audience. So I’m not seeing anything which makes me go “here is someone who’s trying to innovate on the business model”.