What Adblockers Sell

I installed my first adblocker sometime in the mid-2000s, because I was tired of banner ads and autoplay videos and the whole exhausting ecosystem of online advertising. Seemed obvious. Smart, even. Free software that protected your privacy. Win-win.

Except it’s not. The reason these extensions are free is that they record every single website you visit. Everything. Your whole browsing history gets logged, packaged up, and sold to data brokers. That’s the whole point. You’re not the customer—your data is the product.

It sounds theoretical until you actually think about it. Anyone with a credit card can buy access to your complete browsing history. Not just what you searched for—everything. The weird stuff. The late-night spirals. The thing you looked up once and regretted. The medical searches. The thing you told nobody about. All of it is for sale to anyone who wants to spend a few bucks.

And there are definitely people in your life who would do that if they could. Exes. Jealous people. Curious strangers. People with grudges. It’s not hard to imagine. It’s not expensive. It’s just data—and you’re handing it over every time you click something while that little extension is running.