Last year, UK carrier EE announced that they wanted to look into the idea allowing their customers to block ads by giving them tools to do so. Shortly after, O2 also announced they were exploring the idea of network-level adblocking, and the good news is that if you are a Three customer, you will be pleased to learn that the carrier has hopped on board the idea as well.
According to reports, Three has struck a deal with a company called Shine that will see adblocking introduced at a network level across their networks in the UK and Italy. What this means is that users won’t need to do anything on their part to start blocking ads, although we’re sure that many publishers and advertisers won’t be too thrilled by it.
Three UK chief marketing officer Tom Malleschitz said, “Irrelevant and excessive mobile ads annoy customers and affect their overall network experience.” He also listed three reasons as to why they are doing this. For starters, customers pay for data and that data should not be used by advertisers to load ads. Secondly, some ads are known to steal customer information without permission.
Thirdly, customers should only receive relevant ads, not ads that cause their mobile experience to be “degraded by excessive, intrusive, unwanted or irrelevant ads.” No doubt this is a win for customers, although the Internet Advertising Bureau has warned that as a result of this, publishers could start charging customers to access its content, especially since this move will eat into their revenue.
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