Ad blocking software is to the publishing industry what Napster was to the music business..
According to a report compiled by PageFair, more internet users are blocking adverts than ever before, with the rate more than doubling over the course of last year.
More than 150 million browsers are using some form of ad blocker, the vast majority using plug-ins for either Google’s Chrome or Mozilla’s Firefox browser.
Sean Blanchfield of PageFair said the figures were significantly larger than expected.
Ad blocking is most popular with younger users and used by 41 percent of American internet users aged between 18 and 29.
It seems that the adblockers are used by exactly the kind of people that advertisers want — millennials.
Blanchfield said that the software as “like the Napster of the advertising industry” and publishers are going to have to fight it.
He thinks that adverts need to change so that they are less intrusive and less likely to drive users to adblock software.
At the moment advertising online is annoying often demanding attention, such as a click to make it go away.
