CRTO

Just saw an exchange on CNBC regarding ad blockers. Jonathan Steinberg (Maria Bartiromo’s hubby) who runs a website was discussing ad blockers.
He said that there are companies that can bust through ad blockers. He said that as a content provider if the viewer of his site is not willing to pay him something by way of ads, he doesn’t care if they view his content or not. Thought that was interesting that it’s a constant arms race to and fro.

Rob

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as a content provider if the viewer of his site is not willing to pay him something by way of ads, he doesn’t care if they view his content or not.

Ah, ad blocker blockers. Nice.

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Perspective from the “other” side - http://fortune.com/2015/09/18/dear-apple-i-may-rob-your-stor…

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If customers of web sites who support the sites by advertising find a way to use those web sites for free, the owners of the web site will find a a way of blocking the free loaders or go out of business . Because most of the time TANSTAAFL.

I dislike aggressive advertising. If a YouTube presentation requires I sit through a 30 second ad I will usually go away. But I tolerate a 5 second ad. Because I know the site has to pay for developing and maintaining itself.

If add blocking becomes successful the vast cornicopia of the WWW will shrink significantly. Or some micro charge system will be developed, no browsing unless you have your credit card entered first. Or much more likely an anti ad blocker software will become popular. And a WWW form of an arms race will start . To the harm of everybody who uses the WWW.

I agree with the article,. Supposed somebody developed a system that blocked RFID chips and store security cameras to make shoplifting from Apple Stores easier . Would Apple support it?

In any case I expect most will not actually use an Apple ad blocker, WWW sites will figure a way to fight back, and l IOS is used by only a small percentage of web viewers.

So is it a threat to CRTO? Probably not as much as the market thinks. But this is opinion, a guess, since there is no objective data on something that hasn’t happened yet

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If customers of web sites who support the sites by advertising find a way to use those web sites for free, the owners of the web site will find a a way of blocking the free loaders or go out of business . Because most of the time TANSTAAFL.

If add blocking becomes successful the vast cornicopia of the WWW will shrink significantly. Or some micro charge system will be developed, no browsing unless you have your credit card entered first. Or much more likely an anti ad blocker software will become popular. And a WWW form of an arms race will start . To the harm of everybody who uses the WWW.

The more likely scenario is that you will be directed to applications instead of browsing content on the web. I.e. companies like Facebook and Apple win, Google lose. Of course it is possible for ad blocking to occur on apps, but this is highly unlikely because I don’t see Apple or of course Google implementing intrusive operating system level blocks for their apps.

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A creator of a best-selling ad blocker app just pulled it, after wrestling with his conscience over what it would do to online web publishers. Via The Wall Street Journal:

Less than 48 hours after the “Peace” mobile app was released–and rapidly hit the top of Apple’s chart for paid apps–its well-known creator pulled the advertising blocker from the App Store over pangs of conscience.

Marco Arment, a popular developer who created Instapaper and was a lead developer on Tumblr, suggested he was troubled by the harm that came from depriving some businesses of advertising revenue. He explained his reasons for pulling the $2.99 app in a blog post titled “Just doesn’t feel good.”

“Achieving this much success with Peace just doesn’t feel good,” wrote Mr. Arment, an influential presence in the tech landscape who has 86,000 Twitter followers. “Ad blockers come with an important asterisk: while they do benefit a ton of people in major ways, they also hurt some, including many who don’t deserve the hit.”

In the run up to and through the release of iOS 9, a war of words erupted on Twitter and in the blogosphere over the benefits of ad blockers (speed, efficiency, security, control) versus the chief drawback: depriving publishers of their lifeblood. People took sides. Advertising is one of the few ways publishers – particularly smaller, independent ones – have to monetize their online audiences, particularly on mobile devices. At the same time, too many publishers have tracked users, violating their privacy and slowing the load times of mobile Web pages, critics argued.

Read the whole thing at http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/09/18/developer-pulls-peace…

  • Matt
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Supposed somebody developed a system that blocked RFID chips and store security cameras to make shoplifting from Apple Stores easier . Would Apple support it?

Suppose you go to the Apple store to by a case for your iPhone and as you walk in the door three people come up you you and shout offers to upgrade your phone, meet women over 50 and get 10% off at Starbucks next door?

The ad blockers do not block all adds, they tend to be designed to block the most annoying ones, banner adds, auto-start video, etc. Embedded ads that look like content squeeze by.

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