SOURCES
This blocklist is based on surveys of most used advertising and tracking technology (e.g. surveys of W3C, W3Tech and the digital marketing community itself). The online advertising industry likes to keep lists of top performing companies in the ad supply chain (including advertising exchange platforms). The list and surveys monitored are oriented on Europe and North America, this is the reason this blocklist contains mostly EU and US based advertising and tracking networks.
WHY USE A SMALL ADVERTISING AND TRACKING NETWORKS BLOCK LIST?
In advertising the number one (Google) has a marketshare of around 40 percent, Facebook the number two hits the 20 percent mark while the number three (Comscore) just has a little over 2.5% marketshare. For comparison Amazon with its huge webstore generates about the same advertising traffic on its own website. Number 100 on this list is probably used at 5000 websites of the Alexa Top 300.000 websites, while number 250 may only track you on 500 websites of the Alexa Top 300.000.
LOW UPDATE FREQUENCY
Because this list focusses on the advertising and tracking networks which place the adds on the websites you visit, this list is not subjective to a lot of changes. Simply because it takes a lot of time and money to build such a backbone (ad serving) network. Also the digital marketeers using these networks are a constraining factor, because most don't like to learn how to use new software which makes them reluctant to change to a different advertising platform when the business advantage is marginal.
ADVICED USAGE
When you use Ege or Firefox with build-in tracking protection, you can use this version https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Kees1958/W3C_annual_most_used_survey_blocklist/master/addendum_to_Edge_Firefox_build_in.txt
ERRORS & ISSUES
Please report site breakage on github by creating an issue. https://github.com/Kees1958/W3C_annual_most_used_survey_blocklist/issues. I will try to correct errors as soon as possible.