Adblock Plus Unveils 'Acceptable Ads' Platform to Sell and Serve Ads

Eyeo, the maker of the Adblock Plus ad-blocking extensions and apps, has been working on Acceptable Ads for a while. The aim, according to the company, is to block only annoying and intrusive ads, while allowing white-listed Acceptable Ads to pass-through. In some versions of the extensions, users can choose to allow these non-intrusive ads, apart from choosing their own crowdsourced filter list. The company has now gone one step further, unveiling the Acceptable Ads Platform.

(Also see: Adblock Plus Unveils a Way Users Can Tip the Websites They Visit)

The Acceptable Ads Platform is essentially an advertisement network that serves ads that adhere to the company's non-intrusive advertisement policy. These ads are whitelisted, and will not be removed by Adblock Plus from the webpage, the company said in its blog.

The company says its Acceptable Ads Platform was developed in collaboration with publisher platform provider ComboTag, and that it has been launched in beta form right now. The platform is meant for publishers and bloggers, and lets them choose from a "marketplace of pre-whitelisted ads."

Talking about the specifics of Tuesday's announcement, Eyeo says it has opened its policy of Acceptable Ads to make the whitelisting process more transparent, and its recently formed independent committee is scheduled to meet later this year to take forward the policy. With a new feedback mechanism, users and publishers will be able to rate advertisements, data which will then factor in the real-time bidding process when selecting whitelisted ads from the marketplace.

The Acceptable Ads Platform will see publishers keep 80 percent of ad revenue, while 20 percent will be divided amongst other parties involved in serving the ads, including a fixed 6 percent cut for Adblock Plus. The exchange is an attempt at a truce between advertisers, publishers, and ad-blocking software, as struggle between them is reaching unprecedented levels.

Of course, the entire concept of ad-blockers allowing certain advertisements through is not new, and, Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich's upcoming Brave browser also plans to integrate the Brave Ad Network that utilises a user-publisher-browser revenue model that will see both users and publishers paid for viewing and serving non-intrusive ads. In the recent past, Adblock Plus also unveiled a way users can tip the websites they visit while blocking ads or seeing only whitelisted ads.

In the meanwhile, while some companies, mostly news websites, are not even allowing users to view their content without stopping the ad-blockers, others like Facebook have found innovative ways to get its advertisements past blocking software.

Last month, Facebook made an announcement that it will embed advertisements with the content available on its website to prevent their blockage by ad blockers. This move by the company was followed by a quick reply from Adblock Plus that it found a way to bypass the technique used by the social networking website. Facebook, however, adapted to the bypass and came out on top again.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Google and ad tech specialist AppNexus also will also be involved in selling ad space via the Acceptable Ads Platform, by offering the space to potential buyers through their own ad exchange platforms.