A recent study reveals that more than half of Americans are now using ad blocking software, with the figure rising to two-thirds to three-quarters among advertising, programming, and security professionals. The survey, conducted by research firm Censuswide on behalf of Ghostery, a maker of software to block ads and online tracking, shows that 52% of Americans now use an ad blocker, up from 34% in 2022.
Interestingly, the study found that the general public tends to use ad blockers more for protecting privacy (20%) than for blocking ads (18%), with another 9% wanting faster web page loading. Among the expert set, protecting privacy is cited with greater frequency – 27% for advertisers, 30% for developers, and 29% for security pros.
The study also revealed surprising findings about the extent to which people trust various companies that collect online data. Despite being the biggest data collector, Google is still trusted by many. Americans were most wary of TikTok (59%), followed by Meta (56%), Twitter (49%), OpenAI (48%), Google (44%), Apple (41%), Amazon (40%), Microsoft (38%), Comscore (32%), and Adobe (31%).
These results show that the American public is less aware of data collection by companies with a lower public profile. As the CEO of Ghostery, Jean-Paul Schmetz, observes, “People who know how the internet works – because they work as developers or in security or in advertising – they’ve all over the years decided that it was a good idea to use a tracker blocker or content blocker or adblocker, whatever you call it.”
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