EU outlaws network-wide ad blocking

Telecoms companies will be prohibited from installing network-wide software that blocks adverts from appearing on smartphones, according to guidelines published on Tuesday by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications.

Consumers will still be able to install ad-blocking apps on their phones.

A clause in the guidelines stated that telecoms companies “should not block, slow down, alter, restrict, interfere with, degrade or discriminate advertising when providing an IAS (internet access service)”.

The guidelines will now be passed on to local regulators, for implementation.

Shine Technologies, the Israeli company that is working with a handful of European mobile companies on ad blocking trials, was highly critical of the guidelines.

“European citizens have a right to protect themselves from being tracked, profiled and targeted by AdTech. Lobbying efforts by the advertising industry were successful in obfuscating these fundamental rights,” said Roi Carthy, chief marketing officer of Shine.

“We are confident that paragraph 78, that bars AdTech protection technology to be provided as a service, will be challenged and fail, as it infringes on the rights of European citizens to defend their private communications from unlawful tracking and profiling,” Carthy said.

The advent of ad-blocking technology has set the telecoms and publishing worlds apart, as it threatens to erode the revenue of media businesses that spend billions on mobile advertising.