Study of Ad-Blocking Software Suggests Wide Use

The prominence of ad-blocking software — which allows people to remove online advertising by downloading a plug-in to many popular Internet browsers — is highlighted in a report being released on Aug 10 by two companies opposed to the software.

Ad-blocking will lead to almost $22 billion of lost advertising revenue in 2015, according to the report, put together by Adobe and PageFair, a Dublin-based start-up that helps companies and advertisers recoup some of this lost revenue. That represents a 41 percent rise compared to the previous 12 months, and the levels of ad-blocking activity now top more than a third of all Internet users in some countries, particularly in Europe, the report said. Gaming, social network and other tech-related websites were most affected by ad-blocking software, the report added.