Loading ...News organisations have tried many novel ways to make readers pay – but this idea is possibly the most audacious yet.
If a reader chooses to block its advertising, US publication Salon will use that person’s computer to mine for Monero, a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin.
Creating new tokens of a cryptocurrency typically requires complex calculations that use up a lot of computing power.
Salon told readers: “We intend to use a small percentage of your spare processing power to contribute to the advancement of technological discovery, evolution and innovation.”
The site is making use of CoinHive, a controversial mining tool that was recently used in an attack involving government websites in the UK, US and elsewhere.
However, unlike that incident, where hackers took control of visitors’ computers to mine cryptocurrency, Salon notifies users and requires them to agree before the tool begins mining.