From the conference notice front page: Ad blocking is the latest crisis du jour, a potentially existential threat to the industry.

I would guess you are correct. What's ironic is that adblock plus understands their value proposition and whitelists advertisers if they are not too shitty. I run Adblock plus for this very reason (as opposed to a less forgiving blocker).

Also, they just landed Larry Ellison of Oracle as a featured speaker.

http://www.iab.com/

>whitelists advertisers if they are not too shitty.

I don't have any source with me right now, but I've heard that they only whitelist advertisers that pay them (I recall some people comparing this to blackmail).

I didn't know this, but they admit it on their site, and explain it.

https://adblockplus.org/about#monetization

TL;DR is that if by participating in the "Acceptable Ads" initiative the organization gains 10 million more ad impressions per month, then they have to pay. If they are "smaller" than that, it's free to them.

Everybody has to keep their ads acceptable, however; you can't bribe your way out of it.

> Everybody has to keep their ads acceptable, however; you can't bribe your way out of it.

Riiiiight.

Well, it'd be immediately visible to the users. While I think it is blackmail, ABP has a lot to lose by not enforcing strict standards.

They whitelist Taboola, Outbrain, and other native ad networks. I think the strict standards horse has left the barn.

Outbrain provides "uses who read this also read these", no? Or do they also do shady things like splicing in ads between "proper" recommendations?

If ABP started letting unacceptable ads through they'd lose all their users. Enlightened self-interest and all that.

Good point. It only works until somebody decides that they are leaving money on the table.

Found one source that indicates that the payment may be substantial: "Financial Times reports that one digital media company (which asked not to be named) was told that it would cost 30 percent of its advertising revenue to be whitelisted by Eyeo and AdBlock Plus." - http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/over-300-businesses-...

In a weird way it manages to fix many people's problems with advertising. Ads are sometimes horribly intrusive (to the point that ad-blockers are necessary to me) and it forces companies to adhere to some kind standards when none are technically required.

On the other hand; it's blackmail. It also falls apart if there are too many competing services or people generally catch on and switch to another ad-blocker. Then companies either pay N-vetting services or their investment is completely wasted. The end result is an (arguably) overly-strict vetting service because people will switch if they don't block enough ads.

As a consumer; I just wanted an ad-blocker sooo....

It is comparable to blackmail if they aren't doing any vetting/work or if the advertiser isn't at risk of blacklisting/losing their investment when they put out a troublesome ad.

But the fundamental idea of forcing ad networks to pay for vetting of their ads before they are shown seems very pro-consumer.

> Also, they just landed Larry Ellison of Oracle as a featured speaker.

Man, this would make me cancel my ticket. I try to avoid being in the same state as Larry Ellison. The evil just oozes.

> Also, they just landed Larry Ellison of Oracle as a featured speaker.

Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Lawnmower's can't speak. Lawnmowers just mow the lawn.

> potentially existential threat to the industry

I wonder if it really is a threat. Serving anything related to ads from same domain as content will make it much harder to create reliable blocking rules[1]. If ad blocking requires heuristics like the ones in Readability extension it won't be as popular.

[1] as a bonus it instantly kills simplistic host file method

The EasyList[0] already has blocking for DOM elements and querystring parameters in addition to domain blocks. So even with hosting ads from the same domain, they get blocked.

For example, ABP blocks our same-domain, self-hosted trackers with the default settings even though our domain is not listed there.

[0] - https://easylist.adblockplus.org/en/

I find it amusing that their page loads with a popup: https://screencloud.net/v/vOXl

> existential threat to the industry

I can only hope that it is.

> Or maybe get some insight into why so many people feel that ad-blocking is necessary?

Or, heavens forbid, feel uncomfortable hearing that this cool tech they are so proud of actually pisses people off?

I tend to agree with you but I also think that the IAB is recognizing the unique threat that ABP specifically (as opposed to adblocking generally) poses to the industry. I'll explain what I mean.

ABP has a mafia-style business model based on extorting advertisers for inclusion on an acceptable ads list. Whether you agree with the concept of acceptable ads or not, it's pretty clear that ABP's narrative is hollow and their implementation is focused on their own bottom line: nearly every programmatic ad exchange who is willing to pay money is whitelisted as ''acceptable''.

It's a client-side tollbooth erected between users and the sites they visit, extracting money from the ecosystem for little value in return. At some point it isn't even ''adblock'' any more because so many ads are whitelisted, and (as a former user) I think ABP clearly passed that point awhile back. Their brand, momentum, and marketing allow them to keep users captive. There's probably opportunity in creating new adblock clients with no whitelist, growing the userbase, and then selling out to someone with an acceptable ads list, as there should be slow but eventual migration (which uBlock's growth points to).

At the point that the acceptable ads business model becomes normalized, it's fair to ask, where does it end? You will see every company with client software rolling out adblocking features (with tollbooth, of course). It's senseless, inefficient, and doesn't reward good actors (actually, likely rewards bad actors). I'm not saying that web publishers and their ad tech minions didn't bring this sandstorm upon themselves (I believe they did, and shed no tears for them), but even so, the future of the web is not dueling mobs of client-side adblocking thugs with variable rate cards for ad networks to bypass their intended functionality. At least I hope it's not.

I'm no fan of the IAB but I can at least admit to being impressed that someone there had the insight to take this stand, if that's indeed what it is.

The issue is that AdBlock Plus isn’t really someone neutral.

It’d be easier to get other adblockers to attend, but a company whose business is to blackmail ad companies and get over 30 million USD a year out of that is hard to justify at such a conference.