Earlier this week culture secretary John Whittingdale described adblocking as a “protection racket” and a real danger to areas of the media who rely on advertising. The counter argument is that publishers and newspapers have created this problem themselves by trying to maximise profit from digital visitors with increasingly obnoxious ad formats and more intrusive ways of tracking who has seen them.
The landscape has changed significantly with the shift to mobile consumption of media, with networks such as Three in the UK offering adblocking as a service, and Apple allowing adblocking in iOS9.
A recent report revealed that 22% of the UK’s internet users have an adblocker installed, up from 18% just three months earlier. And that figure rises to almost half for 18- to 24-year-olds.
We’d like to hear from people who regularly use adblockers. What are your main reasons for blocking online advertising with this software? Have publishers gone too far with digital ads? What other methods to build online audiences and revenue do you think would be more productive? Or do you agree with John Whittingdale that “if people don’t pay in some way for content, then that content will eventually no longer exist”?
Share your thoughts on why you would or wouldn’t use adblocking with us by filling in the form below.
