The Amount of Money Lost to Ad-Blocking Is Skyrocketing
Are you annoyed by online pop-up ads or those video commercials that automatically start playing when you visit a new Web page? Worried about advertisers collecting your personal information online? You’re not alone. In the perpetual cat and mouse game between marketers and Internet users, the utilization of ad-blocking software by Web surfers is growing rapidly — and it’s costing advertisers billions.
Ad-blocking technology was employed by 45 million active users during the second quarter of 2015, a new report by PageFair and Adobe found. This represents 16 percent of the U.S. online population. In the past year, the number of users blocking ads grew by 48 percent.
In 2014, ad-blocking in the U.S. cost an estimated $5.8 billion in lost advertising revenue. That figure is expected to jump to $10.7 billion in 2015 and $20.3 billion in 2016 as more users adopt the practice. The new version of Apple’s mobile operating system coming this fall is expected to make the problem worse, since it will allow iPhone users to block ads in Safari with a simple app.
In addition to lost revenue, ad-blocking skews the demographics of the online audience. Websites that cater to younger users — a demographic advertisers are eager to target — are the ones most significantly affected by ad-blocking.
Related: The Future of Advertising: Everything, Everywhere, All the Time
A survey in the PageFair/Adobe report found that the main reason individuals block ads is a concern about advertisers mishandling personal data.
Advertisers have a long way to go when it comes to trust. An article in AdAge argues that marketers should be more transparent about the ways they use the information they collect. It recommends giving users more control of their personal data, the ability to decide how much information to share and the choice to opt-out at any time.
Trust isn’t the only issue, though. The appeal of ad-blocking is growing as “malvertising” attacks become more common. Last month, Yahoo’s ad network was targeted for seven days by hackers who sent out corrupt bits of code through Flash-based ads to visitors on Yahoo’s popular sites. Some users were redirected to sites that paid the hackers for traffic, while others had their computers locked for ransom.
Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
- Bush Looks to Make Up for Past Blunders on Iraq Policy
- Oil Sector Insiders Signal It’s Time to Buy
- How a Soaring Dollar Forced China to Devalue Its Currency
GOP Tax Cuts Getting Less Popular, Poll Finds
Friday marked the six-month anniversary of President Trump’s signing the Republican tax overhaul into law, and public opinion of the law is moving in the wrong direction for the GOP. A Monmouth University survey conducted earlier this month found that 34 percent of the public approves of the tax reform passed by Republicans late last year, while 41 percent disapprove. Approval has fallen by 6 points since late April and disapproval has slipped 3 points. The percentage of people who aren’t sure how they feel about the plan has risen from 16 percent in April to 24 percent this month.
Other findings from the poll of 806 U.S. adults:
- 19 percent approve of the job Congress is doing; 67 percent disapprove
- 40 percent say the country is heading in the right direction, up from 33 percent in April
- Democrats hold a 7-point edge in a generic House ballot
Special Tax Break Zones Defined for All 50 States
The U.S. Treasury has approved the final group of opportunity zones, which offer tax incentives for investments made in low-income areas. The zones were created by the tax law signed in December.
Bill Lucia of Route Fifty has some details: “Treasury says that nearly 35 million people live in the designated zones and that census tracts in the zones have an average poverty rate of about 32 percent based on figures from 2011 to 2015, compared to a rate of 17 percent for the average U.S. census tract.”
Click here to explore the dynamic map of the zones on the U.S. Treasury website.
Map of the Day: Affordable Care Act Premiums Since 2014
Axios breaks down how monthly premiums on benchmark Affordable Care Act policies have risen state by state since 2014. The average increase: $481.
Obamacare Repeal Would Lead to 17.1 Million More Uninsured in 2019: Study
A new analysis by the Urban Institute finds that if the Affordable Care Act were eliminated entirely, the number of uninsured would rise by 17.1 million — or 50 percent — in 2019. The study also found that federal spending would be reduced by almost $147 billion next year if the ACA were fully repealed.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Mick Mulvaney has been running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since last November, and by all accounts the South Carolina conservative is none too happy with the agency charged with protecting citizens from fraud in the financial industry. The Hill recently wrote up “five ways Mulvaney is cracking down on his own agency,” and they include dropping cases against payday lenders, dismissing three advisory boards and an effort to rebrand the operation as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection — a move critics say is intended to deemphasize the consumer part of the agency’s mission.
Mulvaney recently scored a small victory on the last point, changing the sign in the agency’s building to the new initials. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not exist,” Mulvaney told Congress in April, and now he’s proven the point, at least when it comes to the sign in his lobby (h/t to Vox and thanks to Alan Zibel of Public Citizen for the photo, via Twitter).
