The motivations of Internet users to avoid online advertisements by employing ad blocking extensions

Abstract: This thesis explores the motivations of online users to avoid online advertising by employing ad blockers. Ad blocker is the filtering technology that blocks online advertising from appearing. Four motives have been identified: privacy concerns, annoying advertisements, browsing experience, and malvertising. The motives examined are aiming to reveal the importance of each one of them in the blocking activity. The research follows a quantitative methods design, with data being collected through 202 self-completion online questionnaires. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted along with a multiple regression analysis in order to reveal the linearity of the independent variables with the advertising avoidance. Three of the four variables were found to have a significant relationship with the blocking activity, while malvertising is not considered an important factor for the generated model. This research raised implication for companies, digital marketing practitioners, online content publishers, and website operators.