Blow to telecoms companies as EU outlaws network-wide ad blocking
Plans by European mobile phone companies to block advertisements across their networks have been dealt a heavy blow after new EU telecoms rules outlawed the process.
Software that blocks adverts from appearing on smartphones has proved a hit with consumers who have flocked to the technology. That has led some mobile phone companies to consider implementing a network-wide block on adverts to appeal to customers sick of invasive marketing that eats into their data allowance.
Yet guidelines published by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications on Tuesday advised local telecoms regulators that while consumers should be allowed to install “ad blocking” apps on their phones, network-level blocking should be prohibited.
A clause buried in Berec’s “net neutrality” 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, including Ofcom in the UK, to apply.
Three, the mobile network, has been blocking adverts in network-wide trials in recent months in the UK and Italy and has expressed confidence that it would not breach net neutrality regulations being drawn up in Europe. The telecoms company declined to comment ahead of a formal launch of its ad-blocking product. It is understood to still believe that its strategy to require its customers to opt into the service should override rules related to network-level ad blocking.
Shine Technologies, the Israeli company that is working with Three and a handful of other mobile companies on ad blocking trials, was highly critical of Berec’s position.
“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,” Mr Carthy said.
Shine counts Li Ka-shing — Asia’s richest man and head of Three’s parent company CK Hutchison — as an investor. It has also signed deals with Digicel in the Caribbean and Econet in Africa.
The advent of ad-blocking technology has set the telecoms and publishing worlds apart. The technology threatens to erode the revenue of media businesses that spend billions on mobile advertising.
Matthew Howett, an analyst with Ovum, said: “Publishers and advertisers may be breathing a sigh of relief after reading Berec’s net neutrality guidelines, since the wording suggests that network-level ad blocking would go against the principles that make up the EU’s net neutrality regulation. Network-level ad blocking, which operators such as Three in the UK have been considering, would be prohibited unless the volume of ad-related traffic was so great that it was hampering the performance of the network for everyone else.”