My Browser is not a Billboard: Experimental Evidence on Ad-blocking Adoption and Users’ Acquisition of Information

46 Pages Posted: 26 Jul 2022

See all articles by Niklas Fourberg

Niklas Fourberg

Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste; Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf - Duesseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)

Serpil Tas

Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste

Lukas Wiewiorra

Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste

Date Written: December 23, 2021

Abstract

Ad-avoidance technologies such as ad-blocking devices in browsers have become mainstream tools in recent years and escaped their role as niche applications that are only for the technically savvy. While technical impacts of those tools are well researched, their effects on actual consumer behavior is not. In an experimental setting this study provides first evidence on the effect of ad-blocking on users’ ability to acquire information in the form of an online reading task. We find that ad-blocking leads to more effort being exerted and increases social welfare by reducing inefficient searching. Additionally, ad-blocking induces users’ visit duration on websites to be more elastic in the experienced intensity of advertisements, making the competitive environment among publishers more intense.

Keywords: L82, L86, M37, C91

JEL Classification: Ad-blocking, consumer behavior, lab experiment, online advertising, welfare, privacy

Suggested Citation

Fourberg, Niklas and Tas, Serpil and Wiewiorra, Lukas, My Browser is not a Billboard: Experimental Evidence on Ad-blocking Adoption and Users’ Acquisition of Information (December 23, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4173091 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4173091

Niklas Fourberg (Contact Author)

Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste ( email )

Rhöndorfer Str. 68
53604 Bad Honnef, 53604
Germany

Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf - Duesseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) ( email )

Universitaetsstr. 1
Duesseldorf, NRW 40225
Germany

Serpil Tas

Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste ( email )

Rhöndorfer Str. 68
53604 Bad Honnef, 53604
Germany

Lukas Wiewiorra

Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste ( email )

Rhöndorfer Str. 68
53604 Bad Honnef, 53604
Germany

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