Adblock Plus is causing a big stir everywhere in the online marketing world, at least in the media, but I haven’t seen anyone in the affiliate space talking about all the press this story is getting yet. Wait, before I say anything else, let me be clear. I am NOT saying the sky is falling or affiliate marketing is dying. In fact I think these stories have gotten blown out of proportion.

The initial concern was raised by this New York Times story: Whiting Out the Ads, but at What Cost? Then today Seeking Alpha posted:

“Adblock Plus blocks ads delivered by most commercial ad servers and large advertisers, and poses a threat to the revenue of Internet advertising companies such as Google, and Internet content companies such as Yahoo!, CNET, Microsoft, the New York Times, Time Warner and TheStreet.com. Some small web sites have retaliated by preventing access via the Firefox browser.”

Wladimir Palant, developer of the Adblock Plus for Firefox plug-in estimates there were 2.5 million users of Adblock Plus and states there are 300,000 to 400,000 new users each month. Adblock Plus is reportedly the 2nd most popular Firefox plugin and PC World choose Adblock Plus as one of best products of 2007, so the app is being promoted and does have a few users.

Some publishers are retaliating by blocking Firefox users who want their content for free, yet want to strip the advertising out of their sites. They are sending their visitors to WhyFirefoxIsBlocked.com, an advocacy site that states “Software that blocks all advertisement is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers… Accessing the content while blocking the ads, therefore would be no less than stealing…”

I was involved a few years back in the anti-ad blocking crusade when Norton had ad blocking on by default and was blocking and stripping out affiliate ads and text links. We finally got Norton to change the default ad blocking to OFF, so only people that really wanted to block ads could.

This too shall pass. I am not worried at all at this point, just passing on the news for anyone that wants to be informed about the issue.

Additional coverage - Adotas: Firefox Adblock Plus: Just Say NO To Ads
MarketingVox: Firefox Plugin ‘Whites Out’ Online Ads; Major Players Seem Nonplussed