Adblocking and Media Automation: Anti-Advertising and Industry Disruption

Julian Thomas

“Apple’s 2015 decision to allow ad-blocking apps on the iOS App Store sparked a larger debate — ‘a kind of war’, in the words of one developer. At issue were the ethics and practices of both advertisers and ad-blockers. For some participants, the stakes were, and remain, high: the future prospects of the advertising-supported web, and therefore our established systems for producing, paying for, and circulating journalism. Soon after ad-blockers became easily available on the iPhone, startling reports began appearing about their popularity and widespread use, with apparently serious impacts on publishers’ revenues …”