Conference proceeding
Adblocking and Counter Blocking: A Slice of the Arms Race
Proceedings of the 6th USENIX Workshop on Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI '16)
08/08/2016
Abstract
Adblocking tools like Adblock Plus continue to rise in popularity, potentially threatening the dynamics of advertising revenue streams. In response, a number of publishers have ramped up efforts to develop and deploy mechanisms for detecting and/or counter-blocking adblockers (which we refer to as anti-adblockers), effectively escalating the online advertising arms race. In this paper, we develop a scalable approach for identifying third-party services shared across multiple websites and use it to provide a first characterization of antiadblocking across the Alexa Top-5K websites. We map websites that perform anti-adblocking as well as the entities that provide anti-adblocking scripts. We study the modus operandi of these scripts and their impact on popular adblockers. We find that at least 6.7% of websites in the Alexa Top-5K use anti-adblocking scripts, acquired from 12 distinct entities – some of which have a direct interest in nourishing the online advertising industry.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Adblocking and Counter Blocking: A Slice of the Arms Race
- Creators
- Rishab Nithyanand - Stony Brook UniversitySheharbano KhattakMobin JavedNarseo Vallina-RodriguezMarjan FalahrastegarJulia E PowlesEmiliano De CristofaroHamed HaddadiSteven J Murdoch
- Resource Type
- Conference proceeding
- Publication Details
- Proceedings of the 6th USENIX Workshop on Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI '16)
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 08/08/2016
- Academic Unit
- Computer Science; Law Faculty; Public Policy Center (Archive); Center for Social Science Innovation
- Record Identifier
- 9984259412702771
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