Ad-blocking site now sells ads

Ad-Block Plus logo. Screen Grab from Twitter

Ad block Plus rose to prominence after offering services that would eliminate annoying advertisements to casual users.

The site, however, appears to have defeated its purpose after introducing a new service that seemingly puts more ads on users’ screens.

According to a report from The Verge, Adblock Plus is now hoping to replace big, ugly and intrusive ads with smaller, subtler, and theoretically much less annoying ones.

The new feature will debut through an ad marketplace, which will assist blogs and other website operators to pick out so-called “acceptable” ads and place them on their pages.

Instead of the usual ads that sites would normally showcase, a list of “acceptable ads” will appear to visitors using the app,the report verified.

“It allows you to treat the two different ecosystems completely differently and monetize each one,” Ben Williams, Adblock Plus’ operations and communications director explained the recent shift.  “It will also crucially, monetize the ad blockers on on their own terms.”

The marketplace, meanwhile, is referred to as an extension of the Acceptable Ads program that the app has been running since 2011.

Prior to it’s proposal, the ad blocker has defaulted to “whitelisting” approved ads, so that they show up even when users have the blocker turned on.

Despite appearing to contradict its initial goals, Ad block assures that the new program  is meant to be friendly to publishers— letting them display a few ads instead of none whatsoever.

Furthermore, the app would also allow its publishers to keep 80 percent of all ad revenues from marketplace ads, with the remaining 20 percent being divided among various other parties involved with serving the ads.

Williams added that he expects some users to be unhappy with this arrangement at first, but he remains keen that it will solve a problem that would exist no matter what.

“Ad blocking would have happened with or without us,” he said. “What we were able to do is try and reverse the spread of 100 percent black-and-white ad blocking, blocking everything. Acceptable ads was a pivot toward what we think is better.”

The beta for the ad marketplace launch was set to be released Wednesday, while the full version will be launched later this year. Khristian Ibarrola