Wow. Smart and interesting as there have always been significant questions on this. Google, Yahoo, Aol were all reported (Google admitted so publicly) to be paying off the top Adblock company effectively making their market. I’ll find an old thread of mine for background.
Here is an old tweet from @profcarroll who also followed closely. Critical to understand the significance of whitelisting Google’s inventory plus the ability to influence roadmap, rules and design based on payments.
Or this from @dmarti at Mozilla who flags the issue with how consumers may be deceived by the software.
And here is a long thread from me which hits on a lot of the questions we’ve had over the years. Really good to see this being flagged to FTC and Justice who are already reported to be investigating Google’s practices.
some useful links to those catching up to @RonWyden call for investigation by FTC into adblocking practices. Here is where IAB disinvited Adblock Plus from its annual event. We flagged at time our concern major adtech companies (esp Google) subsidized ABP. adweek.com/digital/iab-ch…
It's worth noting the most popular way to discover Adblock Plus is by searching on Google. The top links for
any combo of searches for “ad block”, “block ads”, “ad blocker”, “ad block software”, “free ad blocker” go to ABP. emarketer.com/Article/How-Mu…
any combo of searches for “ad block”, “block ads”, “ad blocker”, “ad block software”, “free ad blocker” go to ABP. emarketer.com/Article/How-Mu…
So not only is Google paying off ABP to whitelist its own ads (likely protecting billions in revenues), Google subsidized ABP helping pay for developers/growth. Also, it's worth noting Chrome is also most popular browser for installing ABP. So Google search and Chrome enable it.
interesting to think thru how whitelisting impacted Google's search ad revenues. Google's recovered revenue from whitelisting should directly correlate to ABP penetration. Search for car dealer without whitelisting, no ad. Search with it, there is an ad. adage.com/article/digita… 
a now defunct software company estimated that almost $900 million of Google's revenue was recovered when it paid off Adblock Plus in 2013. Compound that over the years and it's many billions protected by a whitelisting deal. businessinsider.com/google-saved-a…
the value of whitelisting was backed up when Facebook circumvented ad blockers, opting to use code rather than whitelisting payments. Facebook's CFO credited this effort to half of Facebook's desktop advertising growth. Think about this. ht @JoshConstine techcrunch.com/2016/11/02/add…
also worth noting @petersontee deserves credit for getting a senior exec at Google to admit publicly they were part of whitelisting program. At the time, it seemed like a major issue that Google hadn't publicly disclosed its participation in the program. adage.com/article/digita…
then @ow broke the mysterious news that ABP's largest competitor was acquired by a secret owner (still unknown) and now in the whitelist program. I've since heard uBlock, the next largest competitor, met a similar fate. thenextweb.com/apps/2015/10/0…
btw, side issue maybe, but generally not good for security that millions of Americans have software on their computers that sees all of their browsing under the guise of being an ad blocker and no one knows who owns it. Strong argument for installing EFF or Disconnect products.
Meanwhile Adblock Plus parent company has gone from a few hundred thousand dollars in assets to seventy million in the period in which the whitelisting has existed. I would shine the light all over this market and start with the source of its market makers including Google. /fin
