Parlez Vous Ad Blocking?

The Interactive Advertising Bureau of France (IAB France) released a study earlier this month showing that in France, 30% of surveyed Internet users use ad blockers, with 55% of people aware that blockers exist. 

The survey was released shortly before some top publishers in France, including Le Monde, L'Equipe and Le Parisien, announced that they'd joined together to combat ad blocking. Those three publishers are showing ad-blocking visitors a message saying the only way they can pay staff is to support content with ads, LondonBlog reported

“For our 400 journalists to provide you each day with high-quality, reliable and varied news each day ... we must be able to rely on advertising revenue,” reads a message from Le Monde to visitors running ad blockers, The Guardian reported.

What do we know about French ad blockers, and how do young French blockers compare to their American counterparts? ? The IAB France survey of 13,000 found that ad-block usage varies by age in France. The younger the respondent, the more likely they were to block. Fifty-three percent of Internet users aged 16 to 24 use ad blockers. That number drops to 39% for respondents aged 25 to 34 and 28% for people aged 35 to 49.

According to recent research from Retale, about one in five U.S. millennials use an ad blocker on their smartphones, and 63% of millennials currently use ad blockers on their personal computers.

The IAB France study found reasons for using blockers included wanting uninterrupted navigation (85%) and wanting to block undesired intrusions (82%). Sixty-nine percent of French respondents who block have used a blocker for over a year.

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