Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/265628 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
31st European Conference of the International Telecommunications Society (ITS): "Reining in Digital Platforms? Challenging monopolies, promoting competition and developing regulatory regimes", Gothenburg, Sweden, 20th - 21st June 2022
Publisher: 
International Telecommunications Society (ITS), Calgary
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.
Subjects: 
Ad-blocking
consumer behavior
lab experiment
online advertising
welfare
privacy
JEL: 
L82
L86
M37
C91
Document Type: 
Conference Paper

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