Adblock Plus accepted payouts to lets ads through its filters

Many of us who browse the Internet regularly use extensions like Adblock or some derivative of it to remove all of those annoying ads that would otherwise bombard us at every turn. However, users of Adblock Plus may be upset to learn that Eyeo, the creator of the extension, has excepted payouts from companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to allow their ads through Adblock’s defenses. 

Some of the web’s biggest companies have been paying to get around Adblock Plus, according to a new report from Financial Times. Microsoft’s Bing search ads and Taboola’s “recommended links” box are among the ads that are currently slipping through Adblock Plus’s filter, and FT confirms that it’s the intentional result of a paid deal between the makers of Adblock and the owners of the ads. According to FT sources, the companies have paid Eyeo (the maker of Adblock Plus) to be added to an official whitelist, which allows them to bypass the plug-in. Google has a similar deal, as has been previously reported.