# Ad Blocking

Placing a lot of advertisements can help a product appear more credible.

Customers are more likely to choose a product that they have been given more information about. Advertising as a way of conveying information can help customers feel more confident in purchasing a product. Rory Sutherland says that a large amount of advertising gives customers the message that the company is very confident about the quality of the product because the large amount of money invested means that the company believes that the product is good and that it will be profitable enough to recoup the cost of the advertising in subsequent operations. This type of advertising is usually only supported by large, high-quality companies, so it is sensible for customers to buy a product that they have seen advertised many times. The content of the advertisement can also provide some information about the product, for example, high cost advertisements that are well produced are usually more trustworthy than low cost advertisements. However, the content of advertisements can be easily imitated, and many low-quality companies have profited from the trust placed in them by creating beautifully crafted advertisements.

As online advertising becomes more and more targeted to customer preferences, people are concerned about exposing their privacy and are starting to use ad blockers. But ad blockers don't block all ads; they charge companies fee to allow ads from specific companies to bypass the blocker and appear on web pages. Does this profit-making behavior conflict with its claim to keep customers from ads while surfing the web?