It seems that everybody is weighing in on the issue of ad blocking and the impact it's having on the UK economy; but, with opinions ranging from the logical to the ridiculous, it is apparent that a lack of information and education is fuelling the commotion. Mikko Kotila, principal (pictured below), botlab.io, speaks exclusively to ExchangeWire about how damaging the misguided notions of ad blocking could be on the quest to find a solution.

Last week, the UK Cultural Minister John Whittingdale was speaking to a prestigious audience at the Oxford Media Convention, where he referenced comments on how ad blockers are akin to a modern-day protection racket and seemed to look at the matter largely from a commercial standpoint. Ad blocking is allegedly causing damages of tens of billions in lost digital ad revenue this year. What is entirely lost in Mr Whittingdale’s comments is the cost of advertising inefficiency to the national economy, and the risk to the UK’s GDP growth from further alienating internet users from online advertising.

This piece provides evidence to show how misguided, and potentially dangerous such comments are.

How popular is ad blocking?

– Clarity Ray reported in 2012 overall ad blocking rate to be 10%

– Global use of ad blocking grew 41% in 2015

– AdBlock Plus claims more than 300 million downloads

– uBlock Origin grew 833% in a 10-month period

– 63% of US millennials use ad blockers

With some countries having an overall block rate of close to 40%, and websites with the most tech-savvy audiences expected to be losing well over 50% of their ad revenue, ad blocking’s popularity is somewhere between Twitter and Facebook.

Ad blocking as a solution for a more secure society

In terms of protecting internet users, due to its function of entirely blocking ads and the tracking codes that come with the ads, ad blockers help secure user devices in an internet that is in the grips of a malvertising epidemic. When asked for a comment on the matter, Mikko Hypponen, CRO, F-Secure, said: “Ad-serving platforms are used to deliver malware, and internet users should stay safe by using ad blocking technology.”

Secure user devices are connected with a secure society, as a secure society is fundamentally made up of secure devices. Annual global cybersecurity-related damages are estimated to be between USD$375bn (£263bn) and USD$575bn (£404bn), with just one UK based company reporting revenue losses and other damages of USD$1.3bn (£913m), as a result of a breach. According to the same report, in the UK, 93% of large and 87% of small corporations reported suffering from a cyberbreach in the past year.

The notorious Stuxnet attack, that successfully targeted the Iranian nuclear program, was based on first delivering the malware to a large number of personal devices. As national infrastructure is increasingly a target for malware attacks conducted by enemies of state, malvertising is already a national security risk. According to a report, malvertising attacks increased 300% last year, and were found widely across major sites and major ad platforms, including the largest such platform, Google’s DoubleClick.

In this light, it seems fair to suggest that having a public official responsible for serving public interest and advising against using ad blockers is not different from such officials advising the public against using antivirus or firewall solutions. Both lead to the same inevitable outcome: a less secure society that is more prone to damages and losses caused by cybersecurity breaches.

Ad blocking as a driver for better internet advertising

Ad blocking did not start initially as an initiative to improve internet security, but as a response to growing disconnection between the internet advertising industry and the internet users, pertaining to poor quality ads and violations related to internet users’ right to privacy. This, in part, is also acknowledged in a recent article by Stephan Loerke, boss of the World Federation of Advertisers. Yet, the IAB’s comments on the subject are not different from the comments made by John Whittingdale. Indeed, Mr Whittingdale’s comments seem as if they were directly taken from the IAB’s agenda on ad blocking.

Such antagonising comments, particularly in respect to siding with commerce and against what, in this case, is increasingly in the general public’s interest, can only make things worse. At the very best, such comments are going to increase ad block usage, resulting in further cost to the UK economy from cyberbreach damages and advertising inefficiency. At worst, we’re going to see a further escalation towards more sophisticated 'muting' technologies, where the user has the opportunity of blocking branded keywords, mentions or entire messages across all screens and their entire user experience. This will have a devastating effect on advertising, one of the significant drivers of the national economy and GDP growth. If more politicians and lawmakers assume the rhetoric so far only favoured by the IAB and a subset of its most expedient members, it seems almost certain that within the next 12 months we’ll see the first 'muting' startups emerge.

The only way to effectively reduce the need, and motivation, for ad block use is by addressing the quality of internet advertising, while putting substantial focus into securing the advertising technology ecosystem. The former is related to a fundamental shift towards respecting people as more than 'consumers'. The latter is connected with how easy it is to currently get third-party tags distributed through online advertisements. A point which, when addressed appropriately, will also help to resolve the internet users’ 'right to privacy' question.

To learn more about the scientifically established connection between advertising inefficiency and national economy, read this ExchangeWire piece.