Yesterday, we told you about Adblocker Plus and the plan by its developer to come up with uniform standards for acceptable ads that would be allowed through their ad blocking software. So what criteria does the company use to determine just which ads are acceptable? Lets take a a look at their guidelines.
First is Placement. Adblocker Plus say the ads must no disrupt the user’s normal reading flows. So they need to be on the top, below or to the side of the page’s content. They use the graphic below to illustrate:
The ads need to be clearly recognizable as ads and also labeled as ads in some way.
Size matters when it comes to the ads. If they’re above the content, they shouldn’t be taller that 200 pixels. If they’re on the side, they shouldn’t be wider than 350, and if they’re at the bottom, the maximum height should be 400 pixel and always leave enough room on the viewing screen to see the content of the page depending on the device you’re using to view it on. Ads should not occupy more than 15% of the visible screen above the fold and not more than 25% of the screen total.
Other criteria include no excessive use of color or other attention-grabbing elements in text ads.
Animated ads are not considered acceptable, not are ads that autoplay sound or video. Pop-ups and pop-unders an a no-no and pre-roll video ads aren’t permitted either.
Websites can also pay a fee to Adblocker Plus to have their content “white listed,” which means it will be deemed as acceptable. Google and Amazon are among the companies known to have paid this fee.
Adblocker says it only charges the 10% of those who are white listed and that they only charge fees to large companies.
What do you think of these criteria for acceptable ads? What would your rules be? Let us know in the comments.
~ Cynthia
Ads are generally a nuisance, with the exception of Amazon which seem to keep
everything within acceptable limits. Others, who annoy me, I do not and will
not purchase from. They get in my way of reading things I want to research, and
I boot them off or just give up. The people need to retake control of their
own computer. It belongs to us, not them. They can’t put ads in my yard or
on my car, why on my computer.
Ad blocking should mean NO ads. I use AdBlocker, and currently they
allow us to block all ads (default is to allow “SOME” ads). As we’ve
seen over the years, if you give marketers an inch, they’ll take
a mile and keep on going. There will never be a standard that they
will abide by.
I do not like the ads at all. If I want to buy something I will look on my own
Without ads there would be but a tiny/minute portion of the web sites offered to us. Plain and simple. Ads are how sites make revenue and pay their staff. Without ads we would have to pay to belong to certain web sites.
I don’t mind the simple, non-dimensional, non-video ads, but I cannot stand the automatic videos screaming “this woman lost a billion pounds by following our program” or the flashing ads warning of various problems. I want to be able to make the choices on what is displayed and will gladly allow certain ads to play rather that be bombarded with data using videos, flashing ads and the other crap we see on web sites.
if they want to allow ads, they better change their name! I still get ads from time to time at the top of my home page and I use AdBloc
If this is a paid for ad blocker, NO ADS should be allowed. They should use the money paid to them to pay their staff and their bills.
Shirley
I have no real objection to ads as long as they are not videos, banners that move across the screen, capture the screen or take up more than approx 20% of the screen. They do provide for free features for which there would otherwise be a charge.
NO breaks or special rules for the big companies.
AdBlocker it is all or nothing. If I change ad blockers it will NOT be to Adblocker!