Ad Blocking Raises Alarm Among Firms Like Google
By DAVID JOLLY January 6, 2013
PARIS - Xavier Niel, the French technology entrepreneur, has made a career of disrupting the status quo.
Now, he has dared to take on Google and other online advertisers in a battle that puts the Web companies under pressure to use the wealth generated by the ads to help pay for the network pipelines that deliver the content.
Mr. Niel's telecommunications company, Free, which has an estimated
5.2 million Internet-access users in France, began last week to enable its customers to block Web advertising. The company is updating users' software with an ad-blocking feature as the default setting.That move has raised alarm among companies that, like Google, have based their entire business models on providing free content to consumers by festooning Web pages with paid advertisements. Although Google so far has kept largely silent about Free's challenge, the reaction from the small Web operators who live and die by online ads has been vociferous.
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*THIS* is why cellular companies are so closed-mouthed about their phones and networks. They want to make sure /their/ customers see everything they intend.
Bill Horne Moderator