Facebook announced on Tuesday that it plans to block advertisers or AdBlockers from the desktop version of its website to show ads to 1,7 billion users.
This move could upset too many social network users who have installed an ad blocker (198 million users according to PageFair) to avoid invasive or bulky ads, as well as malicious software.
In a post on her blog companys, Facebook's vice president of advertising platform Andrew Bosworth acknowledged that for dealing with malicious ads, ad blockers "have been the best option so far."
He also acknowledged that Facebook - like many content publishers - has most of their advertising revenue (although a large portion of Facebook advertising revenue comes from mobile devices).
To appease those unhappy with the company's "democratic" decision, Bosworth said Facebook will provide more customization options beforepricefor displayed ads.
“If you don't want to see ads from a certain genre, like taxivia cats, you can remove that type from your ad preferences,” Bosworth explained.
"We've also heard that many want to be able to avoid ads from companies or organizations that have added them to their customer lists. So we added tools that will allow them to be blocked. "
