In the age of AdBlock and NoScript, AdSense may have an advantage.

I think the only people who really like advertising are people who make money from advertising. Sure, ad watchers can get information or even entertainment from a well designed ad, but for the most part it is an interruption that disrupts an experience. A lot of people would like to see advertising done away with completely. People like that who surf the Web are increasingly using tools like the Firefox add-ons AdBlock and NoScript to block ads from their view. As someone who likes advertising primarily because he makes money from advertising, I am more than a little concerned over what will happen as more and more people start blocking ads on the Web. Will the numbers of ad blocking individuals be sufficient to shake up the Internet advertising world?

I fully expect there to be many more ad blockers in the future, targeted towards surfers on all platforms and of all nationalities. There will even be an "arms race" of sorts between advertisers and ad blockers, with each group trying to outwit the other. The question I'm not sure of the answer is how motivated the average surfer will be to block ads even when the tools to do so are readily available. We have to keep in mind that people on the Internet vary widely in their level of experience using computers and the Internet. For some, using a browser other than Internet Explorer is still a radical idea. Some don't install new programs knowingly at all, end of story. So there will always be an audience available to view ads on the Web, and its size won't be small. People also vary in their level of distaste for advertising as well; those who recognize that advertising actually motivates the creation of Web content and services may well tolerate it as a "necessary evil." Still, I think the outright majority of Web surfers are going to be open to the idea of blocking ads. It's not only those who find advertising annoying who will turn to ad blocking. For some, safety factors will be paramount -- NoScript, for instance, can block a lot of ads, but I think its most important use is to prevent malicious code from being executed. Since ads themselves can be vectors for transmitting malware, people concerned with surfing the Web securely are among the most likely groups of people to block ads.

Given that ads can be a security risk and that many are only useful to small groups of people, there are millions of surfers who would not feel a twinge of regret over blocking all ads from their lives permanently. After all, what have ad companies like Casale Media and Tribal Fusion done for THEM? Google AdSense is somewhat different, however, and it is primarily because of the size and variety of its publisher base. An Adsense publisher could be someone who just started a blog on Blogger one day for fun. In all likelihood, this publisher will never reach payout -- he may never even get a single regular reader. Nonetheless, he has published on the Web and had the experiences of signing up for AdSense, getting approved to run ads, and setting up the actual ads on the blog. This is a person who will look on AdSense a little differently compared to how he looks on every other ad company. If he ever decides to start blocking ads, he's going to be more reluctant to block AdSense ads than those from other companies -- after all, he's an AdSense publisher himself! AdSense's open policy is not embraced by all; plenty of advertisers, for instance, want no part of Google's "content network," preferring instead to advertise alongside search results only. I also strongly suspect that small-time publishers are more likely to resort to click fraud and commit other violations of AdSense guidelines than their more successful cohorts. Still, I think that the relationships AdSense has formed with millions of people could really pay off if there is an ad blocking related shakeup in the Internet advertising world.

Indeed, I would advise any ad network to at least consider starting a free blog or web hosting service in which the only ads permitted would be served by that particular ad network, with revenue shared with the web publisher. Such a move creates good will and increases the network's reach at the same time. It could even give those ad networks a little bit of an edge in the (perhaps) difficult times that loom ahead.