Adblock Plus’s Till Faida on the shifting shape of ad blocking
Publishers hate ad blockers, but millions of internet users embrace them — and many browsers even bake it in as a feature, including Google’s own Chrome. At the same time, growing numbers of publishers are walling off free content for visitors who hard-block ads, even asking users directly to be whitelisted.
It’s a fight for attention from two very different sides.
Some form of ad blocking is here to stay, so long as advertisements are irritating and the adtech industry remains deaf to genuine privacy reform. Although the nature of the ad-blocking business is generally closer to filtering than blocking, where is it headed?
We chatted with Till Faida, co-founder and CEO of eyeo, maker of Adblock Plus (ABP), to take the temperature of an evolving space that’s never been a stranger to controversy — including fresh calls for his company to face antitrust scrutiny.
Publishers hate ad blockers, but millions of internet users embrace them — and many browsers even bake it in as a feature, including Google’s own Chrome. At the same time, growing numbers of publishers are walling off free content for visitors who hard-block ads, even asking users directly to be…
