, Columnist
Mark Zuckerberg's Latest Victory
Ad blocking is another reason for old guard to look on and weep.
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Facebook and Google are the 800-pound gorillas in online advertising because of audience reach and superior targeting. They enjoy another lesser-known advantage: they're largely immune to ad blocking.
People install ad blockers to strip out marketing messages and the trackers used to target ads. They're more widespread on computers but they're migrating slowly to mobile too. Adoption varies by country, as the chart below shows. Analysts estimate that ad blocking cost web publishers nearly $22 billion in lost ad sales last year, compared with total internet ad sales of $160 billion.