Inside the 'arms race' between YouTube and ad blockers

YouTube recently took dramatic action against anyone visiting its site with an ad blocker running — after a few pieces of content, it'll simply stop serving you videos. If you want to get past the wall, that ad blocker will (probably) need to be turned off; and if you want an ad-free experience, better cough up a couple bucks for a Premium subscription. Although this is an aggressive move that seemingly left ad blocking companies scrambling to respond, it didn’t come out the blue — YouTube had been testing something similar for months. And even before this most recent clampdown, the Google-owned video service has been engaged in an ongoing conflict — a game of cat-and-mouse, an arms race, pick your metaphor — with ad-blocking software: YouTube rolls out new ways to serve ads to viewers with ad blockers, then ad blockers develop new strategies to circumvent those ad-serving measures. As noted in a blog post by the ad- and tracker-blocking company Ghostery, YouTube employs a wide variety of techniques to circumvent ad blockers, such as embedding an ad in the video itself (so the ad blocker can’t distinguish between the two), or serving ads from the same domain as the video, fooling filters that have been set up to block ads served from third-party domains. It’s not that YouTube is alone in these efforts; many digital publishers make similar attempts to stymie ad blockers. To some extent, YouTube’s moves just get more attention because the service is so popular. As AdGuard... Continue reading at 'Engadget'

[ Engadget | 2023-12-01 14:00:31 UTC ]

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The year in new platform features and tweaks, ranked

It was a busy year for digital media companies. New features like Facebook Live and Instagram Stories introduced publishers to new content formats and the potential to reach massive audiences. On the flip side, platforms’ priorities constantly seemed to be shifting, which often led to dramatic... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-12-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The End of Digital Advertising as We Know It

The display-ad business model is reaching its saturation point, spurring a need for digital publishers to come up with a new approach. Continue reading at Knowledge@Wharton

[ Knowledge@Wharton | 2016-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How Kik is using chatbots to monetize mobile messaging

Advertising is the heart of most Internet companies, digital publishers, and apps. In the absence of quality advertising, great journalism, music, film, games and culture will either disappear behind a paywall–thus making the Internet closed and, quite literally, unfree–or disappear completely.... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Slack Co-Founder Champions Hiring Diversity at White House's First South by South Lawn

At the inaugural South by South Lawn: A White House Festival of Ideas, Art and Action on Monday, Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield explained that it's easier to implement diversity in hiring practices when companies are small, and by doing so, companies are more likely to be aware of a... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Slack Co-Founder Champions Diversity in Hiring at the White House's Inaugural South by South Lawn Festival

At the inaugural South by South Lawn: A White House Festival of Ideas, Art and Action on Monday, Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield explained that it's easier to implement diversity in hiring practices when companies are small, and by doing so, companies are more likely to be aware of a... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Len Riggio Promises to Fix Barnes & Noble

After a slow start to the fiscal year, Riggio, who returned as Barnes & Noble's CEO after last month's ouster of Ron Boire, has plans to improve the bookseller's bottom line. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-09-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Google's Attack on Mobile Interstitials Provokes That Familiar Mix of Applause and Fear

Google is popping off against one of the most annoying practices among digital publishers: interstitial messages that obscure the content consumers seek via mobile search.Deeming most interstitials "intrusive," the world's largest search engine said Tuesday that publishers displaying... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2016-08-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Why Book Clubs Matter in the Age of Tablets

The importance of book clubs to the bottom line has rebounded alongside print books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital Media Companies Continue Slow March Toward TV

It's no longer a question of "if," it's a question of "when." Digital publishers like Vox Media, BuzzFeed, Thrillist Media Group, and Mashable are all moving closer to being on TV, even though it's taking a little longer than some media-watchers might have predicted.On Friday, "daily digital... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2016-08-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Live video takes center stage at the presidential conventions

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and a whole host of digital publishers plan to bring gavel-to-gavel live coverage of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. This includes live streams of the speeches and onstage shenanigans from legacy outlets like ABC News and CBS News, as well as... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-07-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Barnes & Noble Bets On Physical Bookstores To Improve Profits

New stores with cafés that serve beer and wine are part of the chain’s plans to boost its bottom line. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-06-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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CI4: Finding a Win-Win for Indie Booksellers and Libraries

How independent booksellers and libraries are collaborating on programs to benefit kids and help out the bottom line. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-06-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When you buy digital content on Amazon or iTunes, you don't exactly own it

Buy an ebook on Amazon or an album on Apple's iTunes and you own it, right? Maybe not as much as you think. It's all about what the tech industry calls digital rights management, and the bottom line for consumers is that there are significant differences between owning a tangible product and... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2016-05-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Reality check: Video won’t save the day for digital publishers desperate for growth

Many digital publishers are pushing into video, spurred on by growth-hungry VCs and content-starved platforms. But while video is lucrative, there are no guarantees that scale on Facebook will translate to meaningful revenue. Meanwhile, on TV these companies face the problem of competing with... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mobile operator Three to introduce ad blocking

Move to ‘give customers more control, choice and greater transparency’ will prompt concern among digital publishers and advertisersMobile company Three is to introduce ad blocking across its UK and Italian networks, making it the first major European operator to do so.Three has struck a deal... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2016-02-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Nickel and dimed: Micropayments won’t solve ad blocking

The rise of ad blocking has forced publishers to re-examine not just their advertising, but also their paid models. Micropayments had a flurry of interest over the last few years, which went in hand with the rise of platforms like Blendle, but have so far failed to make any real difference to... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-02-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Powa Does Away With QR Codes to Allow Instant Orders Off Print Ads, Packages

Powa Technologies, which aims to make all ads "shoppable" by letting people scan them with their smartphones to buy products online, is taking another step to make that process easier -- doing away with the need for QR codes so people can scan the print ads whole.Participating brands can upload... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2015-12-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Shamsie: 'Publishers not investing in author careers'

Novelist Kamila Shamsie has said that traditional publishers’ focus on the “bottom line value of pounds and pennies” has meant a shift away from building authors’ careers in the long-term and created a lack of diversity and new voices. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2015-12-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mashable Shop Is a Native Ad That's Also an Online Store

Digital publishers are looking for all kinds of alternatives to the traditional banner ad. They've typically looked at new ways of fusing editorial and advertising -- sponsored articles, branded videos, etc. -- but Mashable has come up with a way to add e-commerce to the mix.On Cyber Monday... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2015-11-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Guardian's Tim Gentry on Why the Digital Advertising Problem Needs a Unified Solution

It's a hard call to make, with disincentives for the first to make it, but there's a growing acknowledgement that digital publishers and advertisers have failed to deliver on the promise that digital advertising held.   The ability to id ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher

[ Editor & Publisher | 2015-10-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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