Phone Carriers Asked to Block Ads From Consumers' Data Charges

An ad-blocking company used a full-page ad in Sept 7's Financial Times to target yet another aspect of digital advertising that consumers might not appreciate: the impact of ad tech on their mobile-phone bills. "Mobile ads consume 50 percent of the data mobile subscribers pay for," the ad says. "Advertisers make billions in mobile advertising. Consumers should not have to subsidize their business."

Ad-blocking companies have been calling consumers' attention to the clutter of online advertising and, perhaps more damaging, the longer loading times associated with its tracking and targeting systems. Blaming ads for sapping data plans could encourage interest in mobile ad blockers, already the focus of a press boomlet as Apple prepares to expand support for the technology on iPhones. The ad, bought by the Israeli ad-blocking company Shine, asks carriers and the mobile trade group GSMA to support "zero rating," the practice of not charging customers for certain data, in the case of advertising. That would mean charging someone else for the data consumed by tracking consumers, targeting ads and loading them.