Marco Arment withdraws ad blocker Peace app over concerns of hurting independent web publishers

19 Sep 2015

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Tumblr co-founder Marco Arment, developer of the most popular paid ad-blocker on Apple Inc's US app store, had withdrawn the product, citing concerns that the tool could hurt independent web publishers.

In a blog post yesterday, Arment, wrote that he was pulling his "Peace" app as he did not feel that it was his role to decide what content was blocked.

"Adblockers come with an important asterisk: while they do benefit a ton of people in major ways, they also hurt some, including many who don't deserve the hit," Arment wrote.

The controversy around ad-blocking software came to a head this week after Apple made it available on the new version of the iPhone operating system on Wednesday. Arment's $2.99 ad-blocking app, Peace, had been the No1 paid app in the US over the past two days, according to Arment's blog.

According to Boston-based Apptopia Inc, a company that tracked app store downloads and revenue, the Peace app generated $113,521 in gross proceeds in the 36 hours it was live.

"Even though I'm 'winning,' I've enjoyed none of it," Arment wrote in his blog. "That's why I'm withdrawing from the market."

Ad-blocking tools are designed to help faster loading of web pages load by stripping out so-called scripts and trackers that used to serve the ads.

Meanwhile, a significant number of Apple Inc customers had reported their mobile devices had crashed after attempting to upload the new iOS 9 operating system, the latest in a line of launch glitches for the tech giant. Twitter and other social media had featured tonnes of messages reporting two distinct faults, with one appearing to be linked specifically to older models of Apple iPhones and iPads.

"It is beyond inconvenient to not be able to use your phone for a day," said student Pip Cordi as staff in the Apple store in central Sydney looked at her phone yesterday, Reuters reported. "I have a lot of apps that I use for school - things like language apps and dictionaries and that's all really important for my studies."

According to another iPhone user, Zorry Coates, she had spent three hours in the Apple store and had been left with the option of either returning her phone to factory settings - losing any non-backed-up data - or waiting until Apple technicians announced an update.

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