What is Adblock and Do-Not-Click, and what does it mean for digital advertising? This presentation explains.

1.
Should we be worried about Adblock and Do Not Track?
3.1.2013

2. Purpose
We will go over the trends around Adblock and Do Not Track -­‐
the two most popular browsers extensions that disable
tracking to better understand how they work and why they
matter to us
2

3. Browser Market Share
US Only Desktop Browser Share Jan 2013 Global Desktop Browser Share Jan 2013
3% 3%
8%
14%
Safari 31%
Safari
41% IE
IE
Chrome Chrome
25% 37%
Fire Fox Fire Fox
21%
17% Source: StatCounter
over in the next 2-­‐3 years at the current pace
Chrome has seen the largest growth overall in the past couple years
The top browser extensions on Chrome and Fire Fox are adblock-­‐related
Fire Fox announced it will block third-­‐party cookies by default as of April
5th, 2013 when version 22 rolls out
3

4. The Rise of Adblock ad used to be here
goal of Adblock Plus is not to hurt providers of free content. By putting users in control over the ads
we want to make sure that bad ads (e.g. misleading messages that sneak through or malicious apps, etc.) are
eliminated and good ads that focus on a positive user experience will gain a competitive advantage. So we
are not preventing e-commerce websites from making money if they use responsible and controlled types of
adverts Till Faida, co-founder of Adblock
keyword query interest 2004 -­‐ 2012
ad used ad used
to be to be
here here
3.5% of all US Internet users have Adblock Plus installed according to NYTimes
(Jan 2012)
Approximately 8.6MM US Adblock users
Estimated 150K downloads each day worldwide
4

5. How Adblock Works
1) Adblock-­‐enabled browser scans the
page that is about to load
2) Flash files/image files/iframes that
come from ad servers are filtered out
X
3) Website loads ad-­‐free
5

6. Adblock Accessibility
Adblock is the most popular add-­‐on for
Firefox users with 3,000+ reviews and
15.2MM users worldwide
All major web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari) have Adblock available as an
add-­‐on and it is the most popular extension across all browsers
Enabling/disabling Adblock is as simple as clicking
on the icon embedded in the address bar
6

7. User Appeal
Adblock Disabled Adblock Enabled
Users are drawn to Adblock because it offers an ad-­‐free, clean web
experience that often loads a lot faster as well
Most content providers rely on third-­‐party-­‐ad-­‐driven revenue to keep their
sites running and are looking for ways to counter Adblock
7

8. Websites React
Some websites simply black out content when users try to avoid ads via Adblock
Users are forced to disable these extensions for normal web experiences
8

9. What about Do Not Track?
Do Not Track trending via Google 2004 -­‐ 2012
Do Not Call (2003)
Do Not Track (2009)
users activate the feature, and 8%
hunt down the on switch for
desktop editions. This might
sound low, but when you
compare this to other features
9

10. How Do Not Track works
Once Do Not Track is enabled in browsers, the browser sends a signal to websites that
this does NOT disable ads, but simply
disables tracking so behavioral ads do not work properly
Once the add-­‐on is
installed on a browser,
the Do Not Track icon
shows how many
tracking cookies are
present on the visited
site
When the icon is clicked
on, a window appears
and displays
tracking you while also
presenting the option to
allow/block tracking
10

11. How Real is Do Not Track?
Do Not Track Supporters
The whole process behind
the Do Not Track method is
not entirely transparent and
it is difficult to tell whether
the request is being
accepted or not since ads
will still trigger
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is pushing to sign
Do Not Track into law, but there has been numerous
setbacks due to disagreements between advertisers,
browsers, and privacy advocates 11

12. Should We Be Concerned?
Not yet.
These two options are still far from being
adopted by the mass, especially when browser
extensions are still not widely spread within the
internet community
However,
Mobile security is the hottest
topic as its rapid growth has
also been accompanied by
ever-­‐growing malwares
The FTC will likely turn their
attention to mobile security
before addressing desktops
It will be difficult for the FTC to force anything into law as online advertising is
what makes most online content widely accessible and free
KBS+ will continue to closely monitor progress and provide updates along the
way
12

13. Thank you!
Questions?
Today 20??
13