AdBlock founder Faida calls for transparency in ad instustry

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GoMo calls for AdBlock Plus to come clean over numbers for its mobile followers

trend towards more transparency - faida

Here at GoMo Towers we like to provide our readers with ‘both sides of the same coin’. In other words, whilst we publish news aimed directly at helping the growth of the mobile advertising industry, we’re happy to give the industry’s critics their say. But there’s something that doesn’t quite stand up about the stance being taken by Adblock Plus, the anti-advertising activists. The organisation says it has recently seen download numbers of two million per week. Plus from September 2012 through to December [2013] it experienced download growth of (59.10 per). How many of those downloads were mobile, GoMo asked? They won’t tell us.

“Unfortunately we don’t have download figures specifically for Android phones,” a spokesperson told us.  Which is curious.

GoMo News could normally make a good guess by going onto Google Play and seeing roughly how many people have downloaded the app.

Except, of course, as we reported here … ‘Adblock Plus warns that 44% have heard of adblocking apps‘,  Google pulled the AdBlock Plus app for Android from Google Play. A strange decision.

So, we can’t check on Google Play but Android users can download the Android app directly from the AdBlock Plus web site. We’ve even published the QR code that can take potential users directly to the right download page.

This means that AdBlock Plus itself knows almost exactly how many Android users have downloaded its app because the vast majority have come from its own web site.

Back in April [2013] GoMo News checked the Adblock Plus download statistics for Mozilla/Firefox here and reported that roughly only one per cent were Android users.

So we’re beginning to see something of a pattern emerge. AdBlock Plus aren’t keen to admit that whilst those with desktops are downloading its blocking software – the practice doesn’t appear to be very common amongst mobile users at all.

The organisation happily admits that ad revenues are growing – it quotes, “Half-year Internet ad revenue hit a historic high this year, clocking in at $20.1 billion, according to the IAB.”

But GoMo News would argue that a substantial part of that growth is down to expansion in mobile advertising.

AdBlock Plus also cites research from Adobe which it says round that, “0 per cent of respondents preferred to look at an ad in an app and only 2 per cent and 3 per cent preferred ads on social media and news sites, respectively, when compared to other formats.”

We can’t see, however, how AdBlock Plus can claim that, “Ad fatigue could be responsible for the consumer backlash on Internet advertising.”

It argues that, “The ad industry must respond to the juxtaposition of the increase in online ads and the increase in adblockers. The ad industry must deal with the outcry to make ads less intrusive.”

Till Faida, co-founder, Adblock Plus, says, “Going into 2014, I anticipate a general trend toward more transparency for end users.”

“Advertisers can continue to make money, but they will need to compromise with their users who know the tools needed to take back control of their Internet.”

Hans Cett is an established freelance author and consultant specialising in the mobile communications industry. He also writes for Countdown2MWC - http://countdown2mwc.wordpress.com/