US newspapers including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are raising the alarm over new ad-blocking software that promises to replace publishers’ advertisements with its own and pay readers in bitcoin to view them.
The ad-replacing plan comes from Brave, a web browser launched this year by Brendan Eich, the co-founder and former chief executive of Mozilla, the web browser. Brave is available on mobile phones and desktop computers and blocks ads and trackers. The company intends to introduce a feature that will replace the ads it strips out with spots from its own advertising network that it says are more protective of users’ privacy and take less time to load.
If users elect to see the new ads, they will receive a 15 per cent cut of gross ad revenue. Website publishers will receive 55 per cent, while Brave’s advertising partners and the company itself will each receive 15 per cent. Users can also choose to send their share of revenue to the websites they read.