The buoyant mobile advertising sector has been dealt a hammer blow with the news that Hutchison Whompoa-owned Three has struck a deal with ad blocking company Shine Technologies with a view to rolling it out across the mobile operator’s European operations.
The deal announced on Friday will see Three’s UK and Italian operations implement the technology which differs from other ad blocking technologies by preventing ads from being served to mobile users by blocking ads across cellular networks, with a view to implementing the technology further.
In a statement announcing the deal, Three claimed it did not want to eliminate mobile advertising, rather it wanted to “give customers more control, choice and greater transparency over what they receive.”
Tom Malleschitz, Three UK, CMO, added: “Irrelevant and excessive mobile ads annoy customers and affect their overall network experience. We don’t believe customers should have to pay for data usage driven by mobile ads. The industry has to work together to give customers mobile ads they want and benefit from."
One potential business model for Three to explore includes a potential revenue share deal with the mobile advertising sector’s major names, such as Google and Facebook. A key point raised by the mobile operator in the announcement reads: “customers should not pay data charges to receive adverts. These should be costs borne by the advertiser.”
One business case for telcos to pair with ad blockers is to use the prospect of a full implementation as a means of encouraging Google et al to volunteer some degree of revenue-share in exchange for ferrying this traffic.
Ciaran O’Kane, a thought leader in the digital advertising space, and CEO of research and analysis firm ExchangeWire, said: "This is a great result for Three and Shine, as they both have now found a way to monetise Three's mobile domain outside of its rapidly declining voice and data business. They finally have their mobile toll business, where users are used as proxy for profit."
