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Home » Adblocking and Counter Blocking: A Slice of the Arms Race
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Adblocking and Counter Blocking: A Slice of the Arms Race

Authors: 

Rishab Nithyanand, Stony Brook University; Sheharbano Khattak, University of Cambridge; Mobin Javed, University of California, Berkeley; Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez, International Computer Science Institute; Marjan Falahrastegar, Queen Mary University of London; Julia E. Powles, University of Cambridge; Emiliano De Cristofaro, University College London; Hamed Haddadi, Queen Mary University of London; Steven J. Murdoch, University College London

Abstract: 

Adblocking tools like Adblock Plus continue to rise in popularity, potentially threatening the dynamics of advertising revenue streams. In response, a number of publishers have ramped up efforts to develop and deploy mechanisms for detecting and/or counter-blocking adblockers (which we refer to as anti-adblockers), effectively escalating the online advertising arms race. In this paper, we develop a scalable approach for identifying third-party services shared across multiple websites and use it to provide a first characterization of antiadblocking across the Alexa Top-5K websites. We map websites that perform anti-adblocking as well as the entities that provide anti-adblocking scripts. We study the modus operandi of these scripts and their impact on popular adblockers. We find that at least 6.7% of websites in the Alexa Top-5K use anti-adblocking scripts, acquired from 12 distinct entities – some of which have a direct interest in nourishing the online advertising industry

Rishab Nithyanand, Stony Brook University

Sheharbano Khattak, University of Cambridge

Mobin Javed, University of California, Berkeley

Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez, International Computer Science Institute

Marjan Falahrastegar, Queen Mary University of London

Julia E. Powles, University of Cambridge

Emiliano De Cristofaro, University College London

Hamed Haddadi, Queen Mary University of London

Steven J. Murdoch, University College London

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BibTeX
@inproceedings {198594,
author = {Rishab Nithyanand and Sheharbano Khattak and Mobin Javed and Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez and Marjan Falahrastegar and Julia E. Powles and Emiliano De Cristofaro and Hamed Haddadi and Steven J. Murdoch},
title = {Adblocking and Counter Blocking: A Slice of the Arms Race},
booktitle = {6th USENIX Workshop on Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI 16)},
year = {2016},
address = {Austin, TX},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/foci16/workshop-program/presentation/nithyanand},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = aug,
}
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