# Adblocking

### *Before Adblocker*

### *After Adblocker*


My brother and I enjoy watching anime on “illegal” websites. Back on the Dominican Republic is not unusual for people to use pirate websites to watch their favorite shows as streaming services are perceived to be a luxury. The problems with those types of websites are the constant pop-ups announcing that Jessie is less than a mile away from me and wants to meet up. Tired, my brother installed AdBlock on my computer. The extension worked perfectly on our favorite websites, keeping Jessie and the other weird women away from me. However, I also notice that the effectiveness of AdBlock only partially worked on other “respectable” websites. Back then, I thought it was normal for a free adblocker to not always perform perfectly. I was incorrect.

Most people download Adblockers as a form of escaping the saturated world of advertising, which is increasingly losing credibility as the targeting practices of companies are morally questionable. Sven Taylor perfectly described this form of advertisement as a “threat to privacy” as advertising networks constantly install trackers on the user’s device (2020). This has evolved into “retargeting” which “caused users to see ads ‘following them’ around from one site to another” (Martin 2017). In a sense, advertising has become a form of stalking, with companies constantly disrupting the user's privacy to generate revenue. However, one can question the effectiveness of this method as the individuals may feel that their space and right to protect their information has been violated by websites and the companies themselves. Additionally, and as Don Martin explains, “when developers choose to make a communications medium more targetable, they reduce the maximum amount of information that advertising in that medium can provide to its audience, [and] drive down the value of advertising in the medium” (2017.) Thankfully for users they can now run-away this dystopian episode of Black Mirror with the help of Adblockers, or can they?

When my brother installed the AdBlock extension on my computer, there was a clear expectation that, well, the adblocker was going to block ads. However, what my brother and millions of users did not know was that adblockers such as AdBlock Plus have been running a program, called Acceptable Ads, that allows “good ads, ones that are smaller, subtler” into the user’s page (Kastrenakes 2016). In this sense, the adblocker is failing the users by not providing them with the promised service. Even if the information on partiality remains on the page, ad blockers do not openly disclose information about the Acceptable Ads Program (Taylor 2020). Instead, adblockers in the program make it a default setting (Taylor 2020.) Then again, users are bombarded with deceptive and predatory practices of advertising. Even when users are not being saturated with the “bad ads,” targeted advertising still takes place, defeating the purpose of the extension. In response to this phenomenon, I believe that users should have the opportunity to easily opt out of target advertising. Since advertising pays for the content that we consume, I do not believe that is inherently a “bad” thing. Instead, I think that companies should respect the privacy of the user and use more general tactics.