Costs of Ad Blocking Rise to Nearly $22 Billion: Study

The study, by software group Adobe and Ireland-based consultancy PageFair, found that the number of Internet users employing ad-blocking software has jumped 41 percent in the past 12 months to 198 million.

The report said that while consumers have warmed to the idea of blocking online ads, they may not realize that the practice could hurt websites which rely on ad revenue.

Those losses are expected to grow to more than $41 billion (roughly Rs. 2,62,978 crores) in 2016, the study said.

"It is tragic that ad block users are inadvertently inflicting multi-billion dollar losses on the very websites they most enjoy," said PageFair chief executive Sean Blanchfield.

"With ad blocking going mobile, there's an eminent threat that the business model that has supported the open Web for two decades is going to collapse."

Consumers are able to install extensions on some Web browsers such as Google Chrome which block most ads. A similar tool is expected to become available on Apple devices with the release of the new iOS operating system later this year.

The report said that because of this growth, "ad blocking now poses an existential threat for the future of free content on the Internet."

In the US market alone, blocked ads resulted in $5.8 billion (roughly Rs. 37,201 crores) in losses in 2014 and are estimated to cost $10.7 billion (roughly Rs. 68,631 crores) this year, PageFair and Adobe found.

Campbell Foster, Adobe's director of product marketing, said he hopes the report sheds light on the online ecosystem

"Consumers, for the most part, accept the tradeoff that comes with 'free' I'll give you information about me in exchange for your TV show, film, news article, or service but draw the line at advertising that's intrusive, annoying, irrelevant or downright creepy," he said in a statement.