Arrrrrgh. Should the UK Government ask ad-blockers to walk the plank?

Originally published on medium.com/@peopleio

In his speech during the Oxford Media Convention, the UK Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale, announced that he wants to offer support to those whose websites have been affected by ad blocking technology.

As the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau UK) announced earlier this week, 22 per cent of British adults are now using some form of ad blocking, a steep increase from 18 per cent in October, meaning that for many websites, the ad-derived revenue is undoubtedly in decline. Understandably, it is a concern both for publishers and advertising agencies. To address all their needs, Whittingdale announced he would like to organise a round table“involving major publishers, social media groups and ad blocking companies”.

“It’s great to see the government taking action in response to these industry challenges. The problem right now, is that they’re missing the most important stakeholder, the consumer” says Nicholas Oliver, the founder and CEO of people.io.

Imagine that from tomorrow, obstructing pavements with advertising billboards or that screaming into your ear through a megaphone while you’re trying to read, will be an allowed business practice. That’s impossible, you say. Ok, we agree, it’s unlikely. BUT (and there’s always a but) this is pretty much what would happen if ad blockers were made illegal: you wouldn’t be allowed to block all those ads that pop up and block your enjoyment of the website you’re currently on. And those videos that play automatically and startle you to death by how loud they are? No, you wouldn’t be able to block them either.

Why are consumers blocking ads in the first place?

Rather than asking “How do we stop people from blocking ads”, this “why”should be the first question asked by anyone trying to solve the ad-blocker problem. And the answer is twofold.

First: they’re annoyed by how intrusive the ads are and how much they clutter their experience of the website.

And second they are worried about the safety of their data, especially with ads that seem to know and remember personal browsing history. The government, however, instead of taking a step back to look at the bigger picture and trying to find a way to solve the root of the problem, appears to be viewing it mostly from the point of view of the publishers and advertising agencies. The real problem, of course, is that people have simply had enough of adverts being so disruptive that they can’t even do what they were on the internet to do in the first place.

Furthermore, the Secretary equated ad blocking to a ‘modern day protection racket’ and ‘piracy’, which sounds to us a bit like saying closing the door in a salesman’s face is the same as pushing him down the stairs. While closing the door on a salesman is annoying (and may encourage them to find a better way of selling his products), pushing him down the stairs is illegal.

In the same way that the music and movie industries embraced the new ways people wanted to access their products (through introduction of paid/premium services such as Netflix, Spotify, Hulu or Apple Music etc), we believe that ad-blocking will push the advertising industry to find better, more effective and valuable ways of communicating with consumers. Some companies are already embracing the change, for example, Mondelez announcing it “welcomes a bit of ad blocking” .

Germany seems to be on top of this new reality, too. Following several complaints filed against German-based “AdBlock Plus” the courts there have ruled ad blocking to be legal.

What the government, publishers and the advertising industry need to understand is that people don’t hate advertising. A lot of viewers watch Super Bowl only to see what creative adverts brands came up with that year. Millions of tourists every year go to see the Times Square — which should probably by now be renamed ‘Advertising Square’. People enjoy high quality, relevant advertising, even going as far as to seek it out: some commercials on YouTube have been viewed over 2 million times, (by people who sought them out themselves!)

What people do hate, is being stopped from enjoying the content they seek on the internet in the first place. It’s really that simple.

“It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. The eye, in this case, is a person’s control of their online experience.” says Oliver. “Brands, publishers, agencies and the government must all respect a person’s right to control their online experience. No ad-blocker, disruptive advertiser or government regulation should ever take that away.”

We welcome the government intervention, but it should be smart and encouraging, not prohibitive. Instead of banning ad blockers, why not regulate intrusive advertising — the root of the problem? Just as prohibition in the USA didn’t stop people from drinking (quite the contrary), banning ad-blocking is unlikely to actually solve anything.

At people.io, we’re trying to solve the real problem, not just a quick fix to fix the industry problem. We help consumers engage with brands on their terms — when, how and only as much as they want. We believe in the combination of the right message from the right brand reaching the right consumer at the right time. We make all of that happen — in real time and in the right context. By rewarding our users for to taking control of their data, both sides of the equation win.

Join for free on people.io and get rewarded for engaging with your favourite brands.

Written by Gabriela Grzywacz, people.io