Content-blocker Crystal will whitelist some companies’ ads by default

A lot of sites rely on ads for revenue (journalism and other forms of content creation have to be paid for) and if everyone installed ad-blockers on their browsers, we might start having to pay for content, instead of it being funded by advertising. Several ad-blocking apps launched the same day as iOS 9 and immediately shot up the rankings of the most downloaded apps.

Winning one of these automated auctions means you get to fill the ad space being presented to you. The seconds tick by. Blocking ads on your mobile phone is like moving from a crowded apartment complex in a polluted, violent city to a peaceful lake house. A developer of one of the ad-blocking apps actually pulled it from the app store because it didn’t “feel good”, he said in a blog post.

And there have been ad blockers for decades.

Apple Inc. has launched its own ad-blocking tactic in a bid to overtake rival Google Inc., which generates most of its earnings from ad sales.

Over the years, websites have been more aggressive at delivering ads that break through the noise and target specific customers more precisely. It’ll also remove a portion of ads on websites.

“Forty years from now when you have your grandson on your knee and he asks you, “Grandma, how did 50 million Americans ever let themselves be talked into buying the same mouthwash?” you will say, “Well, you have to know how things were before August. 4, 1997″. Some companies block access to sites that managers classify as “non-work related”, such as Facebook and/or Netflix. Pew Research estimates that $19 billion was spent on ads for smartphones and tablets previous year, and that is now closing in on 40 percent of all advertising spending.

Apple has recently allowed developers to make ad-blocking extensions for Safari on iOS 9. Purify Blocker isn’t quite as popular on the Aussie market however, with the app sitting at number 20 as of Tuesday. It’s only a matter of time until a major browser ships with ad blocking turned on by default.

Google’s Android system also allows ad blockers in Web browsers such as Firefox, as long as they don’t affect unrelated apps.

These apps operate similarly to their PC- and Mac-based counterparts, by stopping ads from opening automatically on most websites. If they come up with ads that are less annoying and offer up something different, as some TV ads have done, then ad blockers won’t be needed. As of right now, it’s the best-selling adblocker on the store.

But the company doesn’t need the ad dollars, unlike Google, and risks little to nothing permitting the blockers. Hulu declined comment. Considering that most of these apps are built by small teams of one or two people, you can bet we’ll see more software developers trying to make a similar quick buck.

Perhaps there’s another way – a truce, of sorts. Some get buried below the fold or in the margins.

Native advertisingBlockers won’t be able to stop native advertisements, a new kind of inventory offered by many publishers that more effectively blends in with organic content, but remains separate. So enjoy this time-which, as the writer Clay Shirky once put (back in 2009), is basically like the 1500s after the invention of the printing press: utter chaos-while someone else worries about how to pay for all of it.

“In my opinion, they’re good-looking ads for high-quality products and services”, Gruber tells the New York Times. It provides no details about how it deals with privacy and ad tracking – ad blockers will block analytics, Contributor should do the same.

Despite Apple’s seemingly consumer-centered intention in launching its ad-blocking tactics, there are some who see the move as anti-competitive. But an analyst note released Monday by JPMorgan suggests the potential financial impact of ad blocking has been somewhat overblown. “Everything should be on the table: fewer ads, different types of ads, no ads”. In the 1980s, advertising online was verboten, and within a very short time, early ad-blocking software was born. That way, marketers don’t pay for ads that aren’t seen, and sites should load faster.

While there might be reasonable legal theories to pursue in the end it could well be a tactical and PR mistake for the IAB to bring a lawsuit, especially if it includes Apple.

“We want to find ways to reach these consumers in ways that suit how they want to be communicated to and with”, Laura Mete Frizzell, gm of search/analytics/media at 360i.