What some folks are referring to as the Adblockalypse (it took me a while to pronounce it too) is continuing to gain pace. The latest “extinction event” began with Apple’s inclusion of ad blocking tech in its iOS 9.0. The operators are now jumping on the bandwagon, with O2 UK leading the ad blocking charge.
Speaking to Business Insider, O2′s managing director of digital commerce Robert Franks, said: “We are absolutely looking at [network-level ad blocking] technology. We are holding ourselves to the highest standards with our own advertising. We are looking at these technologies to see if they can help our customers with some of the bad practices and disruptive experiences that are happening.”
Earlier this year, Digicel in the Caribbean announced they were implementing network-wide ad blocking. The focus was not so much on protecting subscribers, but on getting a piece of the very lucrative advertising pie. O2 UK, which is in the process of merging with 3UK, is taking the higher ground when it comes to ad blocking. O2 UK is protecting customers from unwanted ads, in particular those that seriously eat into customer’s data plans – what O2 UK refers to as “bad practices and disruptive experiences that are happening…. The carrier wants to help stamp out three main issues within mobile advertising: poor targeting, poor creative, and ads that are data heavy.”
This is a very interesting and potentially lucrative opportunity for carriers. As usual, I suspect the main opposition here will come in the form of regulators and folks with a vested interest. Any changes in the way Internet/Mobile advertising works can have serious repercussions on a very well-oiled industry. It will be very interesting to see what exactly the role of the carrier will be in “protecting the customer” with ad blocking tech. Many operators already offer services such as “Parental Control” to help protect young subscribers, will protection from misleading, data heavy, uninvited ads fall in to the same category? If so, what next? If your operator could block automatically playing of videos (such as Facebook) would that fall into the same category?
More at BusinessInsider
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