Serious accusations against AdBlock Plus

[JMH]

In an article for mobilegeeks.de

, blogger Sascha Pallenberg accuses the developers of the popular AdBlock Plus (ABP) browser plugin of maintaining business connections to "strategic partners in the advertising industry". Pallenberg goes as far as calling ABP a "mafia-like advertising network".

The plugin, which is available for Chrome and Firefox, introduced a whitelist for web sites with non-obtrusive ads in version 2.0 and Pallenberg is questioning how this list of "acceptable ads" is compiled. Pallenberg is accusing the ABP developers of having connections to advertising and affiliate programmes and that their advertisements are included in the whitelist as a result.

In a statement, Till Faida from Eyeo GmbH, which according to Pallenberg now develops the tool, confirmed many of Pallenberg's claims. Faida says that "a large part of the information concerning the collaboration with our partners is correct," but he also states that the company does not see these industry connections as a conflict of interest. The company is convinced that the "acceptable ads" business model will be successful and says that the whitelisting criteria are "completely transparent".

Serious accusations against AdBlock Plus - The H: Open Source, Security and Development

 

[Basil]

I am sorry, but I can't help feeling that, this article by Sascha Pallenberg, is an attempt to try and discredit AdBlock Plus.
As a long time user of AdBlock Plus, I know that the writer/s of this software have never made a secret of the existence of the advertising whitelist. In fact it is available to all users, by clicking "filter preferences". There is also the option to reject the whitelist "recommendations", by anticking the option "Allow some non-intrusive advertising". I have anticked this option and I don't see any adverts.
As far as I am concerned, Adblock Plus does a brilliant and very effective job.
I would, however, like to know what are Sascha Pallenberg's (I don't know the guy) links with the advertising industry.......because this article surely sounds like "sour grapes" to me.