You know 'Mozilla', don't you? The people who make the Firefox web browser? Well, it turns out they also make a thing called 'AdBlock Plus'. And, if you're using it, you're getting right up the noses of some advertising big-wigs.
For the uninitiated, 'Adblock Plus' is actually a plug-in for Firefox, designed to eliminate adverts from web pages by detecting banners, buttons and text links and blocking them. Without a hint of irony, Mozilla claim their intention is to urge publishers and advertisers to produce ads which are less intrusive. You are free to choose whether this the case or not.
In many ways 'Adblock Plus' is the flipside of those 'cookies' warning messages haunting our internet experience these days. Of course, while those warnings suggest the 'cookies' are there to 'enhance' your visit, they're actually asking you to allow them to throw behaviour-based ads at you. What 'AdBlock Plus' does is ensure you see no ads at all..
Enter Randall Rothenburg (I'm not sure why, but I'm supposing he's an American). Randall is the CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau and has accused Mozilla of 'anti-business bias' and 'possibly illegal activity that deprives a cascading chain of legitimate enterprises of income.' Not only is he getting spectacularly overheated, but he's also plain wrong.
Astonishingly, when the home video recorder first appeared, Universal (a TV network) tried to sue Sony as they had built a product which allowed viewers to forward through the ad breaks. They didn't succeed - and in fact, whenever a technology is developed which makes it easier to duck the ads, broadcasters tend to call in the lawyers - and fail. The law sides with the consumer - and rightly so. Left to its own devices, digital advertising would have wrecked the web by now. Remember those ceaseless pop-up ads, layering their nightmares over our screens a decade ago? Remember how happy we were when software appeared to stop them? Had the ad bashers succeeded, the internet would now be nothing but an eternal mess of rotten up-popping garbage.
Nobody has the immovable right to have their message seen. Not Microsoft, not Apple, not even Pot Noodle. You could try to convince a court the BBC must carry your ads - or you could just flush ten pounds notes down the pan. Rothenburg's outburst is so wrong-headed, it's hard to know where to start. The ad industry has always been forced to find ways over the hurdles of emerging media. Indeed, fabulous sums of money have been made by agencies who have devised the means to conquer the reluctance of punters to look at ads. Running to the lawyers, crying at the unfairness of it all, only goes to show you don't have the means or creative chops to reach an audience regardless of 'AdBlock Plus'.
My grandparents mounted a wooden sign by their front door, reading: 'No Hawkers. No Salesmen.' They had no desire to be troubled by doorstep vendors and knew they were perfectly entitled to turn them away. While the digital age has changed the platform, that principle remains the same.
Magnus Shaw is a writer, blogger and consultant
