IAB un-invites Adblock Plus from its annual conference
Adblock Plus, an app that allows users to block ads on their mobile phones, has been uninvited the from the US Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) annual leadership meeting that’s set to take place in California later this month.
The IAB, which represents a number of key players in the digital advertising industry including Google and Facebook, said in an email to an Adblock Plus employee earlier this week: “We are returning your registration fee and cancelling your registration for the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting.”
On Friday, Adblock Plus’s operations and marketing manager Ben Williams wrote a blog post on the company's website that included a screenshot of the email exchanges as well as his thoughts on the matter.
In the post, Williams said Adblock Plus has contacted IAB’s Randall Rothenberg to ask him if he will reconsider the decision.
“Sadly, if the leader of the largest advertiser trade organization does not have the cojones to allow dis-senting voices to be heard, then he does so at his own peril. Ad industry pundits have blamed themselves for the meteoric rise of ad blocking, and some of IAB’s own lieutenants have called for Rothenberg’s resignation. We’re beginning to see why,” Williams wrote.
Around 15 million people in the US used Adblock Plus in November, up from 13.2 million in October, according to a Wall street Journal article published today.