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Facebook Got Around Ad Blockers... But They've Countered Already

A couple of days ago, Facebook managed to circumvent ad blockers by placing paid content into people's feeds amongst organic posts. But it took only TWO DAYS for the Adblock Plus community to block these too.

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As a response to Facebook's move, Adblock Plus posted this. They attacked Facebook on the grounds that it "takes a dark path against user choice".

This is based on Facebook's blog post which states that user feedback showed that they used ad blocking software because they didn't like "annoying, disruptive ads".

Adblock Plus, maybe a little  too cynically, make the point that Facebook therefore concedes users have a reason to use ad blockers, but don't want to give them the choice of what kind of ads to filter within Facebook itself. Twitter do something similar with their "show me less like this" options on paid posts and Facebook are offering their own opt-out options.

 

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How Adblock Plus works in principle. (Image credit)

 

From the other side of the argument, Facebook's business model will surely place a heavy emphasis on advertising income. Given that it's streets ahead of the next global social platform in terms of users, they'd be daft to cut off advertising revenue.

This whole episode has been deemed by Adblock Plus to be the signal that ad blocking technology has reached the mainstream, something we highlighted would happen earlier this year.

Yet, personally, ad blocking is something which I don't feel the need to add to, being well-satisfied with what my browser already provides. A quick straw poll around the office showed everyone else who is in work here today feels the same.

But there is clearly a number of users out there who do use third party ad blocking software.

Do you? And why?

Also, to what extent? Do you like tailored ads or want them gone? Do not want to see any ads at all?

Let us know what your thoughts are on ad blockers and Facebook's attempts to beat them.

 

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