AdBlock buys ads to make more people block ads

How do you market an advertisement blocker? Through advertisements, of course.

At least the browser extension AdBlock has come to that conclusion, Consumerist reports, and it's launched a crowdfunding campaign to buy advertisements online that will remind everyone how wonderful the Internet can be without ads.

Confused?

AdBlock says about 80 million have downloaded its free extension to date, but it's hoping to spread the word to others using the donated funds.

"We have a crazy idea: ads to get rid of ads," Matt Krisiloff says in the campaign video. The organizers add they plan to contribute all funds to the advertising effort.

[ Related: 100% Of Internet users could have ad-blocking software by 2018 ]

AdAge described it as an Anti-Advertising Ad Campaign, but whatever it is, the fundraising effort has already earned more than $57,000 from 3,100 backers. In a video about the campaign, AdBlock creator Michael Gundlach says the money could also buy ads that people won't be able to block, such as a billboard in New York's Times Square, a print ad in the New York Times or a Super Bowl TV commercial.

AdAge notes there would be a certain awkwardness if the New York Times — a newspaper that relies on online advertising revenue — were to accept an ad that urges readers to block ads.