Three starts network-level ad blocking trial

Updated June 15: Three has confirmed with Ars that the network-level ad blocking trial has begun. It will last for 24 hours around June 15.

Three says that, as part of the trial, the ad blocking tech may only be applied intermittently to some accounts, or not at all. Some ads may slip through the net, too, and there may be formatting errors where ads have been removed. "This is something we’re aware of, and we’re working to fix it," says Three's ad blocking trial FAQ.

The FAQ also confirms that Shine—the company providing the network-level ad blocking tech—won't "look at or store" any data that passes through its equipment. Obviously, though, as Shine has to look at the network data to fish out ads, that might be slightly disingenuous.

Following the test Three will get in touch with some users to see how they fared. There will probably be a wait of a few months while Three works out whether to roll out the tech to its entire network—and presumably negotiations with advertisers and publishers are ongoing.

We have asked Three for confirmation of the trial beginning, but haven't yet heard back. If you're a Three user, and you opted into the trial, please let us know.

Original story (May 26)

Three, the mobile carrier, has begun warming up for a network-level ad blocking trial. It will become one of the first mobile carriers worldwide—and certainly in the UK—to try blocking ads before they are squirted over the network to the consumer, rather than attempting to hide or block ads locally on the device, which can cost both bandwidth and battery life.

The ad blocking trial, which will affect both mobile websites and apps, will take place during a 24-hour period sometime between June 13 and 20. Three says it will contact customers and ask them to sign up for the trial, presumably via the online customer portal. It isn't clear how large the trial will be.

Technologically, the network-level ad blocking will be powered by Shine. Due to the nature of the beast—the constant tussle between ad publishers and ad blockers—Shine doesn't like to talk about its tech in much detail. It sounds like Shine uses deep packet inspection and machine learning to find packets that contain ads, and then replaces or removes them in such a way that it doesn't break the layout of the website or app.

Three's motivation for network-level ad blocking is ostensibly fuelled by three factors: 1) It doesn't want customers to pay the data charges for downloading ads; 2) There's some malvertising out there that potentially hits their customers' privacy and security; and 3) Three doesn't want a customer's browsing experience to be negatively affected by ads (a slow browser, reduced battery life, etc.)

Back in February, Three said that it would talk to "the advertising community to deliver a better, more targeted and more transparent mobile ad experience to customers." It isn't clear if those talks ever came to anything, nor how the network-level ad blocking trial factors into those discussions.

At the end of last year both O2 and EE said they were looking at network-level ad blocking, but neither company provided a timeline of when they might actually activate the technology.

Perhaps the most important question is whether Three, O2, and EE are allowed to block ads before they reach the user. Back in 2013, a large French ISP tried turning on ad blocking by default—but within a few days the French government had stepped in and told them to cut it out. Mobile networks are generally governed by slightly different rules to fixed-line networks, though, and also there's a huge difference between on-by-default and opt-in ad blocking.

Three told Ars that it's keeping Ofcom in the loop, and that it's "confident that it complies with net neutrality legislation." But even so, you can be absolutely certain that the mobile carriers will get smacked by massive lawsuits from advertising companies and publishers if network-level ad blocking moves beyond the trial stage—lawsuits that will probably have to be ruled on by the EU Court of Justice.

Listing image by Three