Cat and Mouse ⇥ techcrunch.com

Facebook’s Andrew Bosworth, Tuesday:

We’ve designed our ad formats, ad performance and controls to address the underlying reasons people have turned to ad blocking software. When we asked people about why they used ad blocking software, the primary reason we heard was to stop annoying, disruptive ads. As we offer people more powerful controls, we’ll also begin showing ads on Facebook desktop for people who currently use ad blocking software.

Ben Williams of Adblock Plus, Thursday:

Two days ago we broke it to you that Facebook had taken “the dark path,” and decided to start forcing ad-blocking users to see ads on its desktop site. We promised that the open source community would have a solution very soon, and, frankly, they’ve beaten even our own expectations. A new filter was added to the main EasyList about 15 minutes ago. You’ll just need to update your filter lists (see below for how).

Josh Constine reporting Thursday night for TechCrunch:

A source says Facebook is now rolling out the code update that will disable Adblock Plus’ workaround. It should reach all users soon.

Adblock Plus on Twitter earlier this morning:

UPDATE: @TechCrunch @joshconstine say that FB had a workaround, but there’s already a workaround to that workaround. Just update filters ;)

Back to that post from Constine:

And Facebook has already broken the new workaround from Adblock Plus, which vows to strike back soon.

Adblock Plus is apparently working on a patch to block ads again, and so it goes. I can’t wait to see which party decides that it’s simply not worth it to keep going on. Facebook is motivated by money; Adblock Plus, by principle.

Update: I forgot that Adblock Plus is also motivated by money:

We receive some donations from our users, but our main source of revenue comes as part of the Acceptable Ads initiative. Larger entities pay a licensing fee for the whitelisting services requested and provided to them (90% of the licences are granted for free, to smaller entities).

Thanks to Erik Michaels-Ober for reminding me.