Unknown buyer scoops up popular AdBlock extension

One of the most popular tools for blocking online advertising was just purchased by a unknown buyer. The browser extension AdBlock — not to be confused with the more popular Adblock Plus — was created by Michael Gundlach, who began working on it full-time in 2011. The tool has since amassed more than 40 million users. Gundlach says today that he’s decided to sell the company and that the buyer wishes to remain anonymous, according to The Next Web.

As a result, AdBlock will join what’s called the Acceptable Ads program. That initiative was started by Eyeo GmbH, the company behind competing ad blocker Adblock Plus. The idea behind Acceptable Advertising is a simple one: if you’re an advertiser that wants to bypass ad blocking, you can apply to pay money to be “whitelisted” and put on a list that AdBlock Plus exempts from ad blocking by default, so long as you meet its criteria for acceptable ads. It’s kind of like a toll booth, or extortion, depending on how you look at it.

Ad blocking has become a source of controversy of late following Apple’s decision to allow third-party ad blockers in iOS 9. The best-selling of the bunch, Peace, was pulled from the App Store by developer Marco Arment who had a crisis of conscience over the ethics of ad blocking. The app to take its place at the top of the list, Crystal, joined the Acceptable Ads program on Tuesday. So now companies can pay Crystal develop Dean Murphy to serve ads to users who ostensibly paid $0.99 not to view ads. More than 70 companies including Google and Microsoft pay Eyeo to get around its ad blocking service, according to The Wall Street Journal, though Eyeo lets smaller companies off the hook.

In fact, the murkiness surrounding Acceptable Ads drove Eyeo to remove itself from the program earlier this week, meaning the company no longer decides which advertisers get whitelisted in exchange for cash and what types of advertising is deemed acceptable. In its place, Eyeo is electing an independent review board to make these decisions. This shift is why Gundlach felt comfortable selling his own browser extension, he says.