200 Million People Worldwide Reportedly Use Ad Blockers ⇥ bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Mark Scott, New York Times:

[Like] a growing number of people, [Guillermo] Beltrà, a Spaniard who works for a consumer protection organization in Brussels, decided to block [ads] by downloading software for his desktop browser that removed any online advertising from his daily Internet activity.

While he acknowledged that advertising was often the primary source of income for many websites, Mr. Beltrà said he remained wary of how much data companies were collecting on his online activities.

“If I don’t know what data is being collected on me, I’d rather block it,” he added.

The bulk of growth in web advertising companies today is on mobile devices. Google highlighted that growth in their most recent quarterly report, while mobile ads now account for 76% of Facebook’s total ad revenue. While Apple is adding content blocking to Safari on iOS, it doesn’t impact content shown in apps, meaning Facebook’s revenue seems much safer than Google’s. I anticipate the latter pushing their mobile app much more readily.