It’s increasingly common for people to try and block adverts on websites. To do this they’ll install some software that simply makes known ads appear as blank spaces when they visit websites.

I guess people do this for a number of reasons. Some might just hate seeing ads when they browse. Others don’t like the distraction. There’s even a security argument as ads are often little holes in a trusted website pointing to the highest bidder.

There’s a problem though. Large websites use ads to make money. They take money when people see an ad – not when they click or buy something (as In Pure Spirit does). If you run an ad blocker and you visit their site, read their content, etc, then are you a thief?

Some sites would say so!

Here’s a possible solution – or a possible can of worms – which is called DoGood. What DoGood does is swap out adverts with green messages/adverts for green companies. They give 50% of the money those adverts earn them to charity. Let’s hope they use the other 50% to promote the service, make it better and otherwise adopt a don’t-be-evil strategy.

DoGood also says their solution doesn’t block the original adverts. People can switch back and forth. This means big sites don’t get robbed of their ‘impression’ based payment (but small sites like this one which hopes for the very occassional affiliate payment may still suffer). However; it’s better than so many other ad-blockers.

DoGood also, as you’d hope, run a blog and have recently increased the browsers they support to include Google’s Chrome. This is a sign that they’re serious.

In Pure Spirit

What do you think? Is this a good idea or is it a terrible one? Should DoGood be keeping 50% – perhaps this figure will come down as/when/if the company grows?