In early October, the people who make ad blocking tools convened in Amsterdam for their industry’s annual conference. One session was a welcome pitch from Google product leaders about tweaks made to address fears that a security update to the company’s Chrome browser could hamper ad zapping. Google, which draws nearly 80 percent of its revenue from ads, even cosponsored the event, at an airy venue along the water.
All the while, another team at Google quietly prepared to unleash the most sweeping crackdown on ad blockers since Facebook took them on in 2016. As the world’s ad blocker builders returned home from their conference, Google’s YouTube unexpectedly broadened a small test begun in May that uses pop-up dialogs to demand viewers disable their ad blockers or else lose the ability to watch videos on the world’s most popular video-sharing website.
Google “were very proud to present at the ad blocking conference,” says Krzysztof Modras, director of product and engineering at ad block and privacy tools developer Ghostery. “And the next day this ad blocker war started.”
Previously unreported figures from ad blocking companies indicate that YouTube’s crackdown is working, with hundreds of thousands of people uninstalling ad blockers in October. The available data suggests last month saw a record number of adblockers uninstalled—and also a record for new ad blocker installs as people sought alternatives that wouldn’t trigger YouTube’s dreaded popup.
YouTube spokesperson Christopher Lawton says ad blockers violate its terms of service and that the company offers YouTube Premium, which costs $13.99 per month, for people who want an ad-free experience. “Ads support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube,” he says. Viewers receive repeated warnings that YouTube doesn’t allow ad blockers before it cuts them from access to videos, he says, declining to provide the total number of affected users.
Munich-based Ghostery experienced three to five times the typical daily number of both uninstalls and installs throughout much of October, Modras says, leaving usage about flat. Over 90 percent of users who completed a survey about their reason for uninstalling cited the tool’s failing on YouTube. So intent were users on finding a workable blocker that many appear to have tried Microsoft’s Edge web browser, whose market share pales against Chrome’s dominance. Ghostery installations on Edge surged 30 percent last month compared to September. Microsoft declined to comment.
Read the full article here
