UK Mobile Network To Block Ads For 24 Hours As Mobile Ad Model “Broken”

UK Mobile Network To Block Ads For 24 Hours As Mobile Ad Model “Broken”
Emma Mackenzie
By Emma Mackenzie



Fed up with consumers using their data to load mobile ads, British mobile network Three is offering customers the chance to eliminate intrusive ads for 24 hours in June.

Three had already teamed up with ad-blocking Israeli company Shine to allow users to scupper ads if they so wished. And now the UK network is trialling a new system to create more relevant and less intrusive ads that hinder consumers’ mobile experience.

The network is asking consumers to take part in a 24 hour trial of filtering out the bad mobile ads.

“This is the next step in our journey to make mobile ads better for our customers,” said Tom Malleschitz, chief marketing officer at Three UK.

“The current ad model is broken. It frustrates customers, eats up their data allowance and can jeopardise their privacy. Something needs to change.

“We can only achieve change by working with all stakeholders in the advertising industry – customers, advertising networks and publishers – to create a new form of advertising that is better for all parties.”

Three’s big issues with the current mobile model is that customers shouldn’t have to pay data charges to receive ads, customer privacy and security must be full protected and users should only receive ads that are relevant and interesting.

Ad-blocking is a large issue in the industry given 198 million people block ads already and 44 per cent of UK adults intend to install an ad-blocker in the future. It’s to the point where Google’s senior product director Richard Gringas declared the mobile web “in crisis”.

Still, some argue it’s a good thing for the industry as it means adland needs to create better ads, and some think it’s just a fad, but there’s no denying ad blocking is squandering publishers out of billions, $36 billion by 2020 in fact.

However, as with Three, there are others attempting to placate this. The founder of Pirate Bay and founder of popular ad-blocking software company Ad Block Plus recently launched a way for publishers to continue to get paid.

 

 




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