“Shut Up” Content Blocker For iOS 9 Hides Comments

Apple’s move is a double-barrelled effort to boost the health of the so-called app economy while undermining arch rival Google, which dominates the online advertising market. That’s a controversial business model, since it basically holds ads hostage until companies agree to pay the ransom.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

With the release of the latest iteration of its iOS operating system, Apple is now allowing ad-blocking software in the App Store. A free service in the business of interrupting other revenue streams was bound to eventually need revenue of its own, and likely beyond what Internet users were willing to donate. Eyeo is sticking to its original policy and will continue to block ads that are too disruptive or invasive to users.

The potential to target ad blockers is “on the radar”, said Jon Anselmo, senior vp, managing director of digital innovation at MediaVest.

According to PageFair’s most recent numbers, Google Chrome accounted for 52% of all mobile ad blocking worldwide, compared to 40% for Firefox. It’s not so much visually seeing the ads, right, as knowing they are watching us.

Every little bit can slow down or freeze your browser.

For media companies and other businesses that rely on web advertising for income, ad-blocking has always been a scourge that threatens their livelihood. “It just makes the whole browsing experience really unpleasant”.

Mr. Murphy 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.

In mid-August 2015, in conjunction with Adobe, PageFair released its annual ad-blocking report, estimating that blockers would cost publishers $21.8 billion in revenue.

Apple iOS 9 launched a week ago and with it comes the opportunity for users to install ad blocking software for its Safari mobile browser. These apps, which you typically have to pay for, are already topping the charts. The firm began enabling ad-blockers on mobile Safari, backing up content to the iCloud, and implemented mandatory use of Apple Maps on CarPlay. Google’s Android remained a point of difference, with ad blockers variously allowed, although they were removed from the Play Store in 2013 during a brief period of strife. Site owners can track what percentage of the userbase is using an ad blocker and decide what to do.

And yet – Apple’s decision to legitimize ad blocking changes the game dramatically. Companies that are paying Eyeo GmbH to let their ads through include Google and Microsoft, WSJ reported.

But it may be time for advertising agencies and web administrators in general to sit and think hard about what adverts they are serving their readers, and how. Hulu declined comment.

Ad blocking was once the domain of the security conscious or those who wanted to do away with ads, and it came with downsides. And while that’s the case and ads are gleefully blocked, those users will get the internet they deserve.

Perhaps there’s another way – a truce, of sorts.

We’ve examined this, and there are some pretty good legal principles here. One example of this type of advertising is “native advertising” – ads that are clearly marked as paid-for/promoted/sponsored but fit with the natural content of a site or app, like Facebook’s News Feed ads, or Twitter’s Promoted Tweets.

“In my opinion, they’re good-looking ads for high-quality products and services”, Gruber tells the New York Times. It’s equally naive for marketers to believe that they can flood the web with auto-playing videos, giant banners, and full-screen ads without annoying users.

Ad-blockers have given consumers a voice in the online ad world – and that voice is loud, it is clear and it is filled with venom.

Apple issued refunds to all of its users who downloaded Peace. That’s the way I feel about the news surrounding the ad blocking features of Apple’s iOS 9.