{"id":44133,"date":"2023-10-20T15:33:42","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/web-users-are-caught-in-a-tug-of-war-between-advertisers-and-ad-blockers-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:33:42","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:33:42","slug":"web-users-are-caught-in-a-tug-of-war-between-advertisers-and-ad-blockers-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/web-users-are-caught-in-a-tug-of-war-between-advertisers-and-ad-blockers-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Web users are caught in a tug-of-war between advertisers and ad-blockers – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span>The battle between the advertising industry, mobile phone operators, publishers and privacy advocates has reached new heights, with Apple\u2019s decision to allow ad-blocking extensions in its Safari browser sparking fears that the multi-billion dollar mobile ad industry could be about to take an expensive haircut. While third-party ad-blocking apps have been around for a while, few are used on mobile platforms \u2013 they are more commonly found on desktop and laptop computers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A recent New York Times article looking at 50 top mobile news websites indicated that of all the data downloaded as part of each web page, more than half was made up of ads. Recent studies of large volumes of mobile traffic from a European telecoms firm has also revealed that a large proportion of the bandwidth used while browsing the internet is in fact consumed by the adverts, trackers and widgets embedded in web pages. In addition to being an annoyance, cluttering up the screen, draining battery life and slowing down the whole mobile browsing experience, many poorly targeted ads are really just another form of spam.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But why are mobile ads so inefficient? This is mostly due to the complex ecosystem in the mobile advertising industry. The majority of apps in the popular markets such as Apple App Store and Google Play are free. Many developers provide a small space for advertising to earn some cash from their work. These spaces are populated by ads and ad-broker services, which pass onto the developer a percentage of the profits, as measured in terms of views (known as impressions) and clicks. Earnings are usually paid on impressions by the thousand, so ad brokers aim to maximise the number of ads and their frequency with which they\u2019re displayed on the user\u2019s screen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n