Serious accusations against AdBlock Plus

[djohnston]

Source

In an article for mobilegeeks.de(German language link), blogger Sascha Pallenberg accuses the developers of the popular AdBlock Plus (ABP) browser plugin of maintaining business connections to "strategic partners in the advertising industry". Pallenberg goes as far as calling ABP a "mafia-like advertising network".

The plugin, which is available for Chrome and Firefox, introduced a whitelist for web sites with non-obtrusive ads in version 2.0 and Pallenberg is questioning how this list of "acceptable ads" is compiled. Pallenberg is accusing the ABP developers of having connections to advertising and affiliate programmes and that their advertisements are included in the whitelist as a result.

In a statement, Till Faida from Eyeo GmbH, which according to Pallenberg now develops the tool, confirmed many of Pallenberg's claims. Faida says that "a large part of the information concerning the collaboration with our partners is correct," but he also states that the company does not see these industry connections as a conflict of interest. The company is convinced that the "acceptable ads" business model will be successful and says that the whitelisting criteria are "completely transparent".

According to Eyeo, having their ads whitelisted is free of charge for small and medium-sized web sites and the company says that it has "always been transparent about financial support from larger companies". The criteria for the selection process are the same for everyone, according to the statement.

Pallenberg, who runs several advertising-supported web sites himself, alleged that the ABP developers could offer web sites a deal in which their advertising would pass the ABP filter if they were prepared to share some of the advertising revenue.

Personal note: A commenter says to switch to Adblock Edge. According to the download page:

Adblock Edge is a fork of the Adblock Plus version 2.1.2 extension for blocking advertisements on the web. This fork will provide the same features as Adblock Plus 2.X and higher but without "acceptable ads" feature.

I have already switched to Adblock Edge.

[melodie]

So did I, which happened when I recently had to reset Firefox without keeping all the plugins installed at that time. I have seen that one and decided to give it a try. So far, so good.

I would like to add that adblock plus which has protected our browsers since such a long time didn't add the cautious feature without informing the user who has an easy checkbox to untick for full anti add protection.

[djohnston]

I would like to add that adblock plus which has protected our browsers since such a long time didn't add the cautious feature without informing the user who has an easy checkbox to untick for full anti add protection.

I can't verify that without reinstalling AdblockPlus. I won't reinstall it just to verify. Are you a spy? Zeigen sie mir ihre papiere.

[melodie]

I can't verify that without reinstalling AdblockPlus. I won't reinstall it just to verify. Are you a spy? Zeigen sie mir ihre papiere.

I can tell you because I installed it and configured it for a bunch of people, who I always ask when I see the option : do you want the "non intrusive adds" or no adds at all? They seldom accept any adds. ^^

I can't read German, or so little, not even worth talking about it.

[djohnston]

Zeigen sie mir ihre papiere.

"Show me your papers." 

[melodie]

"Show me your papers." 

Yes, show me your digital signature!

/papers are frankly outdated