GOOGLE AMAZON AND Microsoft are paying one of the biggest ad blocking services to unblock their ads.

These companies have paid the German startup behind AdBlock Plus, Eyeo to whitelist their ads so users see them. The service has been downloaded more than 300 million times worldwide and has more than 50 million monthly active users.

The deals, which were confirmed by the Financial Times, saw some companies paying up to “30% of the additional ad revenues” it would make when it’s unblocked. Some of the ads allowed come from the likes of Microsoft Bing and Taboola (a company whose “recommended links” box appears on a number of desktop sites including thejournal.ie, Business Insider, The Atlantic and NBC News).

While Adblock Plus’ aim is to block annoying ads, it also has guidelines which identify acceptable ads. This feature is optional for users who can opt-out of the programme and users can report ads they deem unacceptable.

Still, many websites rely on advertising revenues so we want to encourage websites to use plain and unobtrusive advertising instead of flashy banners. That’s why the Adblock Plus community has established strict guidelines to identify acceptable ads, and Adblock Plus allows these out of the box. You can always disable this feature if you want to block all ads.

The company says it works out agreements with sites and advertising networks that want to participate with its service.

Whitelisting is free for all small- and medium-sized websites and blogs, provided they serve what it defines as “non-intrusive advertisements”, although larger sites like the ones listed above have to pay as well if they want their ads unblocked.

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