Europe's Mobile Carriers Aim To Block All Internet Ads

Internet ads have become one of the necessary nuisances of our mobile era. We don't like seeing them, but without them, who knows how many website and services would cease to exist. However, at least one European mobile carrier seems prepared to start blocking all online ads from appearing on your smartphone screen, although not necessarily for your benefit. The purpose, it seems, it to try to fight back against Google and break their hold on the web's advertising systems.

This information comes from a new report from the Financial Times, who spoke to sources at one unnamed Europeans carrier. This carrier was said to have already installed ad-blocking software in its data centers, and has plans to activate it before the end of the year. Several other carriers reportedly have plans to do the same, with the goal being to block ads from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other market giants.

There are few firm details at this point, but if the carriers do move ahead with the plan, the software will be activated as an opt-in service for customers. This would prevent users from seeing ads while browsing the web on their smartphones, but not block the ads seen in apps like Twitter and Facebook.

The two main reasons Europe's carriers want to carry out such an attack on Google and others appear to be to reduce bandwidth usage, and to pressure the internet advertisers into sharing some of their revenue.

This should set off alarms for net neutrality proponents, as blocking all ads like this flies in the face of treating all data as equal. Besides being a blow to Google, it would also be detrimental to the companies and services who rely on ads to make people aware of their products.

SOURCE Financial Times