Every week more than 300,000 browsers gain the ability to turn off website advertisements. While every one of those browsers likely doesn't represent an unique individual, it is potentially 14% of the weekly 2.1 million new users coming online. The popularity of using software to remove ads is rising, no doubt helped at least in part, by ISPs like Comcast capping bandwidth. Even Microsoft, though not officially on the ad blocking bandwagon, has recently acknowledged that with Internet Explorer 8's 'InPrivate Blocking', “ads could get blocked”. With so many traditional desktop apps moving into the 'cloud', and with so many websites relying on ad income to survive, is using an ad blocker equivalent to software piracy?

According to Microsoft and IE8, a nonchalantly no. However, traditional desktop applications paid for by direct sales are becoming web applications that rely on advertising dollars. Ad Blockers are the equivalent of using software you never paid for.  Wikipedia describes software piracy as “copyright infringement of software”. Infringement can be interpreted as using software without a license to do so. Websites are protected by copyright law, and they are most definitely software. This might imply that if ads are displayed on a site, by viewing them, you are paying for a license to use the software contained within the site. With Microsoft bundling code with potential to disable ads intended to be seen, is Microsoft complicit in piracy in the same way that Napster was?

No one is denying that ad blockers don't make the internet experience quicker and in many ways, more enjoyable. Downloading music with Napster was definitely quicker and more enjoyable than driving to Tower Records with an open wallet. And while there is a 14% trend versus new web surfers now, this trend is heavily offset by the number of users already on the internet before Ad Blockers came to be. So the actual percentage is way less that the estimated 35% coverage of traditionally pirated software. It is a trend that will have to be grappled with eventually though.

As Google matures or begins to pain from the now failing economy, this trend may get more attention. Microsoft waited until they were a mature company before programs like “Genuine Microsoft”, and direct monitoring relationships with companies like Ebay emerged. Hopefully when this problem does become a mainstream, Google will continue an innovative approach instead of a Joe McCarthy witch hunt a la RIAA.

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