Word on the street is that Google has paid AdBlock to whitelist Google ads. This isn’t a surprise to us; it’s easy to create a simple program until it takes over your life at which point you have to pay the bills. We have seen this thousands of times in Majorgeeks 13 year history. People seem to expect a lot for free and don’t understand the time involved in providing free services.

AdBlock does say on their website:

“Whitelisting is free for all small websites and blogs. However, managing this list requires significant effort on our side and this task cannot be completely taken over by volunteers as it happens with common filter lists. That’s why we are being paid by some larger properties that serve nonintrusive advertisements that want to participate in the Acceptable Ads initiative.”

Of course, it’s easy to jump on the “beat up Google” bandwagon but HorizonT, who first broke the story, reports:

"Adblock Plus has announced that search ads and sponsored results on Google and AdSense partner websites search for" Acceptable Ads "list are suitable. This list already includes a number of AdSense for search partners, as well as ads on Amazon, Reddit and Yandex."