Scroll was a subscription web service developed by Scroll Labs Inc. that offered ad-free access to websites in exchange for a fee. Scroll was not an

ad blocker Ad blocking or ad filtering is a software capability for blocking or altering online advertising in a web browser, an application or a network. This may be done using browser extensions or other methods. Technologies and native countermeasures ...

, but rather partnered directly with internet publishers who voluntarily took down ads on their sites for Scroll users in exchange for a portion of the subscription fee. In May 2021, Scroll was acquired by

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. In October 2021, Scroll sent out an email announcing integration into Twitter Blue "within 30 days".

Functionality

Scroll enabled users to browse websites partnered with Scroll without the display of

online advertisement Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...

s in exchange for paying a contribution fee. Scroll did not work as an

, which disables advertisements without compensation to the publisher; instead, it sent a

browser cookie HTTP cookies (also called web cookies, Internet cookies, browser cookies, or simply cookies) are small blocks of data created by a web server while a user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer or other device by the user's we ...

indicating that the user is a Scroll subscriber, and Scroll software incorporated into the website detected the cookie and served an ad-free version of the site. In exchange for disabling advertisements, partner websites received a portion of the subscription fee. As of January 2020, Scroll kept 30% of the subscription fee and the rest is distributed among publisher sites. Payments to sites were made individually by users based on their own “engagement and loyalty”, rather than by disbursing money from a single pool of all subscription revenue. Scroll did not give subscribers access to partner sites that have a paywall, it only removed ads from the site if the user also paid the publication's subscription fee.

History

Scroll was founded in 2016 by former

Chartbeat Chartbeat is a technology company that provides data and analytics to global publishers. The company was started in 2009 and is headquartered in New York City, US. The software as a service (SaaS) company integrates code into the websites of publi ...

Chief Executive Tony Haile. Scroll raised US$3 million in its first round of funding in 2016, including investments from ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', Uncork Capital, and

Axel Springer SE Axel Springer SE () is a German digital and popular periodical publishing house which is the largest in Europe, with numerous multimedia news brands, such as '' Bild'', ''Die Welt'', and ''Fakt'' and more than 15,000 employees. It generated to ...

. By October 2018, Scroll had raised US$10 million in funding. In 2018, Scroll signed its first partner websites, which included ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'',

Fusion Media Group The Fusion Media Group (FMG; formerly Fusion Media Network) is a division of Univision Communications. The company was launched in April 2016 after Univision bought out Disney's stake in Fusion through the Fusion Media Network joint venture between ...

, ''

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

'', ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

'',

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...

, ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...

'', and '' Talking Points Memo''. In February 2019, Scroll acquired the social media curation app Nuzzel. The same month, Mozilla and Scroll announced a partnership to run a "test pilot" together, but did not go into details. Scroll entered beta testing in 2019 and launched to the general public on January 28, 2020. In March 2020,

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, wi ...

began offering Scroll as part of its " Firefox Better Web" service bundle. In May 2021, Scroll was acquired by

, with the future of Scroll cited as being uncertain. An email to customers announcing the change said, "Later this year, Scroll will become part of a wider Twitter subscription that will expand on and adapt our services and functionality".

References

{{reflist Application software Proprietary cross-platform software 2021 mergers and acquisitions