Firefox' most popular add-on will no longer block advertisements that are deemed “non-intrusive”. That is, unless you opt out of the “fair approach to ad blocking”.

The 2.0 release of Adblock Plus, an add-on for the Firefox web browser that blocks online advertisements, introduces a new feature: 'acceptable ads'. When you launch the latest version of Adblock Plus for the first time you will be notified that Adblock Plus has been configured to allow "non-intrusive advertising".

The change had been in the making for a number of years. Already in 2009, the project's lead developer, Wladimir Palant, wrote on his blog that he was considering allowing non-intrusive ads. Instead of aiming “to destroy the advertising industry” Adblock Plus should encourage marketeers to create online ads that are less intrusive and annoying, according the Palant.

“Fair ad blocking”

The article immediately led to a fierce debate about what Palant calls “fair ad blocking”. Palant's view is that users of Adblock Plus should support websites “that rely on advertising but choose to do it in a non-intrusive way.” This will give such websites an advantage over sites that do display intrusive advertisements, and make the world wide web “a better place for everybody, not only Adblock Plus users”. The change should in particular support “small websites” that would become “unsustainable” if too many visitors are blocking ads.

Opponents of 'whitelisting' suspect there's another motive. In August 2010 Palant announced Adblock Plus was to receive funding (“enough to let me work on Adblock Plus full-time the next two years”) from someone who “agrees that the current advertising model needs fixing”. In September 2011, Palant announced Adblock Plus had been set up as a company (under the name Eyeo GmbH) and that its benefactor is “a large company”. The fact that this company has not been named has raised the suspicion that Adblock Plus is increasingly serving the interests of marketeers, rather than its users.

The concept of 'fair ad blocking' is equally controversial. Many users of Adblock Plus argue the change isn't necessary because users can already choose to allow advertisements on individual websites. According to Palant this option isn't sufficient: “If we ask users to enable this feature then most of them won't do it — simply because they never change any settings unless absolutely necessary. However, advertisers will only be interested in switching to better ways of advertising if the majority of Adblock Plus users has this feature enabled.” Opponents use the same argument to make the case against the opt-out approach; few people will make the effort to opt out, even if they would prefer Adblock Plus to block all online advertisements.

Supporting domain parking

What doesn't help is that it is unclear how the 'fair approach to ad blocking' is going to work in practice. At the moment there are four requirements advertisements should meet in order to be deemed 'acceptable':

• No animations and/or sounds (static adverts only)
• One script for loading ads per page
• No “attention-grabbing” images
• No 'tracking' of visitors

Sensible as these requirements may seem, they are not unambiguous. There is no definition of what is an “attention-grabbing” image, for instance. More importantly, the developers are not yet able to enforce the requirement that websites do not store information about users with the aim of using it for marketing (a common practise known as 'tracking').

Even more worrying for opponents of the 'acceptable ads' feature is that in future companies will almost certainly have to pay to be considered for 'whitelisting'. In other words, not only will Adblock Plus be the judge and jury of whether or not a particular advert is acceptable, it also has a financial interest in not blocking adverts.

So far the list with websites where Adblock Plus is disabled by default is limited to a handful of German sites. However, the list includes Sedo, a large company specialising in buying domain names without any intention of using them for anything but displaying advertisements. Although the ads displayed by Sedo may meet the requirements for 'acceptable ads' it is difficult to see why Adblock Plus would want to support websites that don't even produce content.

Disabling 'acceptable ads'

When you first install Adblock Plus (or upgrade to version 2.0) you will be presented with a message advising that the add-on has been configured to allow some "non-intrusive advertising":

To disable the feature you can click on the link to the Adblock Plus 'filter preferences'. In the preferences menu you can uncheck the tick box that reads 'Allow some non-intrusive advertising':

It is worth noting that the 'acceptable ads' feature is only enabled by default when you use the default 'EasyList' filter. If you install any other filter the add-on will simply block as many online ads as possible. An explanation about how filters work and how to install alternative filters can be found in an article about Adblock Plus in the 'Causes' section of this website.

Links

• Allowing acceptable ads in Adblock Plus (adblockplus.org)
• Discussion about criteria for 'acceptable' advertising (adblockplus.org)