OKCupid Asks Customers to Help Remove Ads From Site Rather than lose money to customers who had installed ad blockers, the online dating site asks users to donate money to make the site ad-free.

One day in 2012, OkCupid, the ad-supported dating site with well over 7 million members, uncovered a puzzling problem. The site's internal ad-impression numbers weren't jibing with those of an advertiser, which were lower. OkCupid co-founder Sam Yagan recalls the brainstorming session when someone chimed in, "Well, there are ad blockers …" Bingo.

Ad blockers are free web-browser extensions that, once installed by individuals, prevent ads from appearing on every web page visited. For the millions of ad-driven sites on the web, they make dollars disappear. In fact, more than 9 percent of all online impressions in the U.S. are eaten by ad blockers, according to Israeli startup ClarityRay. Ouch.

The Fix
In August 2012 OkCupid published a special notice that was inserted behind every ad position on the site. When users of ad blockers visited the site, instead of seeing white space where ads would typically appear, they saw an OkCupid banner that read, "So normally there would be an ad in this spot. But you're using an ad blocker like a boss … Here's a solution: You donate $5 to us once, and we remove all ads from the site forever."