Hasta La Creative!

UC Browser, a web browser owned by China’s Alibaba Group, has been a major factor in the spread of ad-blocking in Asia. It claims over 400 million active users, many of them mobile users in China and India. Ad-blocking is built right into its browsers, which have “more users than all other forms of ad blocking, combined,” according to a May report from PageFair. The company once touted its blocking capabilities with a cartoon showing a squirrel — the animal on its logo — whitewashing over advertising posters on a wall. “Block the ads, clean the world,” was the cartoon’s caption.

But UC Browser’s vision of ad-free user experience has hit a roadblock in China, where the government is enacting new measures cracking down on ad blocking.

China’s new advertising regulations prohibit applications or hardware to intercept, filter, cover, fast forward or limit other people’s legitimate ads. The rule is vague, but the consensus among legal experts is that most or all forms of ad blocking will probably be banned. Some say the phrasing suggests blocking will still be permitted for ads that break China’s rules on internet advertising. And there are more and more rules, some of them very detailed; pop-up ads have to be closable in one click, for example.

Continue reading at AdAge.com