Topic: Adblock

Adblock Plus has invested in Factmata, a London-based startup that uses AI to fact-check online content. The hosts warn that this allows advertising companies to become the "arbiters of truth," potentially sanitizing news for users. The project is backed by tech figures including Biz Stone, Craig Newmark, and Mark Cuban.

Reports indicate that major tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are paying "extortion fees" to Adblock Plus to have their ads whitelisted. The fee is reportedly 30% of the additional ad revenue generated by unblocking. In response, the advertising industry has proposed "LEAN" ads—Light, Encrypted, AdChoice supported, and Non-invasive—to meet acceptable standards for ad blockers.

Adblock Plus is introducing a program to allow "acceptable ads" through its filter in exchange for a fee from advertisers. The hosts describe this as "legal racketeering" and "extortion," noting that the "Acceptable Ads Manifesto" website is registered to the lead developer of Adblock Plus. They discuss the future of online advertising and Google's efforts to bypass blockers by serving ads directly from primary domains.

Apple's decision to allow ad blockers on mobile devices, dubbed the "Blockpocalypse," threatens the digital advertising industry. The segment explains the arbitrage model where companies buy cheap botnet traffic and sell it to ad networks, a practice that ad blockers effectively disrupt.

One of the hosts describes using "Ad Nauseam," a browser plugin that works with Adblock to click on every ad in the background. This tactic is intended to "befuddle" tracking algorithms by inundating them with bad data, making it impossible to build an accurate profile of the user. The hosts advocate for this type of "destructive work" as a way to resist corporate surveillance.