Industry Tries to Figure Out If China Just Banned Ad-Blocking
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Ad blocking is a high-stakes issue in China, which has 688 million people online. And it’s already widespread. That’s partly because a web browser popular in China — UC Browser, owned by Alibaba Group has it built in as a default; it promises users they can browse faster and save data. By one estimate, at least 159 million people in China use mobile browsers that block ads.
Will all that change? With new regulations announced this month, China seems to be cracking down on online ad-blocking, or possibly just certain forms of it. The language of the rule is ambiguous, causing some debate among experts about what is being targeted, and how much ad-blocking might actually be affected.
New guidelines mentioning ad-blocking were buried in Article 16 of interim online advertising regulations released about two weeks ago by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. They didn’t draw much notice until Adblock Plus wrote a blog post saying China had banned blockers, labeling the country a “bully.”
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