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Website publishers cannot monetize the ad impressions that are prevented by ad-blockers. Publishers can then employ anti-ad-blockers that force users to choose between either accepting ad impressions by whitelisting the website in the ad-blocker, or leaving the website without accessing the content. This study delineates the mechanisms of how willingness to whitelist/leave the website are affected by the request's sensitivity to recipients as well as the users' psychological reactance and evaluation of the website advertising. We tested the proposed relationships using an online panel sample of 500 ad-blocker users, who were asked about their willingness to whitelist/leave their favorite online newspaper after receiving a hypothetical anti-ad-blocker request—four alternative requests with different sensitivity levels were created and randomly assigned to the participants. The results confirmed that (a) the request's sensitivity can improve the recipient's compliance, (b) users' psychological reactance plays an important role in explaining the overall phenomenon, and (c) a favorable evaluation of the website advertising can improve willingness to whitelist. These findings help to better understand user response to anti-ad-blockers and may also help publishers increase their whitelist ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are powerful firms, which benefit from having substantial resources and central positions in online industries. Although they are capable of defending their interests autonomously, they still get involved in and fund collective initiatives such as meta-organizations (MOs – i.e., organizations that have organizations as their members), particularly in the online advertising sector. In this article, which is based on an in-depth qualitative case study, we analyze what digital platforms gain from being members of MOs and, reciprocally, what the MOs gain from having these actors as members. We also investigate how these platforms act as MO members, paying attention to the existing literature on MOs. We focus on the Coalition for Better Ads MO, a collective initiative aiming to counter the rise of online ad-blocking. We show that digital platforms that operate in the online advertising market and as web browsers make a significant contribution to the MO. To this end, the MO delegates several organizational elements (i.e., monitoring and sanctioning) to these firms. This delegation reinforces the position of these members and helps them to change the organization of the whole market to their advantage as they control the advertising features (i.e., formats) of their rivals (publishers). The MO gains in credibility and efficiency, but, reciprocally, the MO gives legitimacy to the actions of the platforms, thereby reducing the risk of conflict with stakeholders.

Digital platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are powerful firms, which benefit from having substantial resources and central positions in online industries. Although they are capable of defending their interests autonomously, they still get involved in and fund collective initiatives such as meta-organizations (MOs - i.e., organizations that have organizations as their members), particularly in the online advertising sector. In this article, which is based on an in-depth qualitative case study we analyze what digital platforms gain from being members of MOs and, reciprocally what the MOs gain from having these actors as members. We also investigate how these platforms act as MO members, paying attention to the existing literature on MOs. We focus on the Coalition for Better Ads MO, a collective initiative aiming to counter the rise of online ad-blocking. We show that digital platforms that operate in the online advertising market and as web browsers make a significant contribution to the MO. To this end, the MO delegates several organizational elements (i.e., monitoring and sanctioning) to these firms. This delegation reinforces the position of these members and helps them to change the organization of the whole market to their advantage as they control the advertising features (i.e., formats) of their rivals (publishers). The MO gains in credibility and efficiency but, reciprocally the MO gives legitimacy to the actions of the platforms, thereby reducing the risk of conflict with stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Website publishers cannot monetize the ad impressions that are prevented by ad-blockers. Publishers can then employ anti-ad-blockers that force users to choose between either accepting ad impressions by whitelisting the website in the ad-blocker, or leaving the website without accessing the content. This study delineates the mechanisms of how willingness to whitelist/leave the website are affected by the request’s sensitivity to recipients as well as the users’ psychological reactance and evaluation of the website advertising. We tested the proposed relationships using an online panel sample of 500 ad-blocker users, who were asked about their willingness to whitelist/leave their favorite online newspaper after receiving a hypothetical anti-ad-blocker request—four alternative requests with different sensitivity levels were created and randomly assigned to the participants. The results confirmed that (a) the request’s sensitivity can improve the recipient’s compliance, (b) users’ psychological reactance plays an important role in explaining the overall phenomenon, and (c) a favorable evaluation of the website advertising can improve willingness to whitelist. These findings help to better understand user response to anti-ad-blockers and may also help publishers increase their whitelist ratios.

Practice- and Policy-Oriented Abstract With the rise of ad-blockers, firms are worried about the loss of revenue. A simple solution like denying web access to ad-block users seems intuitive; but it can lead to a significant drop in the popularity of the website, which can eventually lead to a further decline in the user base. This paper addresses the ad-blocking problem faced by websites and proposes a solution, and using it can increase a website's revenue. Overall, the presence of an ad-blocker at a user's end reveals that the user is very sensitive to ads. Similarly, the absence of an ad-blocker at a user's end reveals that the user is less sensitive to ads. This information about the ad-sensitivity of users is revealed to the website because the ad-blockers are detectable by the website. Using this extra information about the users' ad-sensitivity, the website can discriminate users by showing fewer ads to highly ad-sensitive users and by showing more ads to less ad-sensitive users. This discrimination ability increases the website's revenue. Users who have an ad-blocker installed present a genuine predicament for a website (also known as the publisher): On the one hand, these users do not generate revenue for the website; on the other hand, denying them access can shrink the user base and adversely affect the popularity of the website, ultimately reducing traffic over the long run. This has led some websites to require that ad-block users "white-list" them for obtaining access to an "ad-light" experience. We model the decision problem for a website facing two user segments: regular users and ad-block users. The first-level decision or gating strategy is whether to allow ad-free access to ad-block users or require them to white-list the website for gaining access. When ad-block users are allowed ad-free access, the second-level decision is the level of advertising (or ad-intensity) for regular users. When ad-block users are required to white-list, the second-level decisions are the ad-intensities for regular users and ad-block users. The net utility of a user from visiting the website depends on the intrinsic value of the website's content, the value obtained due to network effects driven by the amount of traffic/popularity of the website, and the cost incurred due to the presence of ads. We derive an optimal gating and ad-intensity strategy for the website and also solve an identical model for a world without ad-block software. We show that the website can increase its revenue by discriminating between regular and ad-block users via the ad-intensities shown to them. More interestingly, we find that the discriminatory power bestowed on the website by ad-blockers can increase the social surplus and, in particular, increase the surplus of both user segments, namely, regular users and ad-block users, when the utility from their outside option is below a threshold. Thus, the advent of ad-blockers can lead to a win-win for both the website and its users. Finally, we propose a superior selective-gating strategy in which only a fraction of ad-block users are gated. We establish the robustness of our conclusions under several enhancements to our base setting: (a) heterogeneous profitabilities from regular users and ad-block users, (b) endogenous adoption of ad-blockers, (c) the presence of a subscription option, and (d) negative externality due to increased traffic. Our analysis ends with recommendations for three stakeholders in this problem, namely, publishers, web-browser developers, and policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]