Last week Adblock Plus‘s Parent Eyeo acquired Flattr, a micropayment and microdonation system. The two companies partnered last year to create a new Flattr as a way for consumers to automatically fund content they want to read using the Adblock Plus browser and the Flattr browser add-on. To set up automatic payments for content, a reader sets a monthly budget and Flattr’s algorithm distributes the “right amounts” to the “right sites” without the reader having to take any additional action like pushing a button or entering payment details. Then Flattr pays publishers, journalists and others for their content.

According to Peter Sunde Kolmissopi, co-founder of Flattr, the marriage of the two companies means the internet will be “fair to all, sustainable and safe.” In an April 5 blog post, Laura Dornheim explains the acquisition.

“Today is a very happy day for us, and we want to share some great news with you: two of the most out-of-the-box thinking organizations on the web have joined forces in order to build a sustainable Internet,” Dorhnheim says.

“Since we partnered up last year to create the new Flattr, we noticed that we had similar values and goals for our projects. Subsequently, we decided it makes more sense to remove the barriers that come from working as two separate teams and integrate into one united team. Our goal of making the Internet safe and fair for all is much better served when we’re totally aligned. Thus today, Eyeo, the company behind Adblock Plus, has acquired 100% of Flattr AB, the company behind Flattr,” Dornheim added.

With more than 100 million downloads, Adblock Plus says it is “viewed as the open web’s largest content curation platform,” because users can block content they don’t want and content creators can earn revenue via micropayments. They believe their partnership with Flattr is a “game changer for how money is distributed to creators directly from their fans, readers and consumers. All in a transparent and fair way.” Dornheim goes on to say that the combination of Adblock Plus and Flattr creates a “quality shield.”

“Over the past 10 months, we collaborated closely and in fact, became one team with a joint vision. So it was just natural to remove the remaining structural barriers and make it official. We share almost identical values of making the internet safe and fair for everyone. We’re excited to continue our work on the Flattr project to give back control to the users of the internet. They should decide how they want to use the internet and how they want to support the content they enjoy. The internet is a decentralized network with unlimited sources of creativity. This free and open internet needs a payment option that reflects these core values,” says Sunde in a press release.

Till Faida, founder of Eyeo, also comments.

“At Eyeo we’ve always looked for ways to make the web more fair and less annoying. We started with Adblock Plus, which helped pioneer the idea of constructive ad blocking: letting in better, more respectable ads that ad blocking users accept. Flattr makes micropayments automatic and effortless, thus it will be the most user-friendly payment solution on the internet. Together, constructive ad blocking and Flattr complete Eyeo’s vision of putting users in control of an internet that is fair and still profitable,” Faida says.

It doesn’t sound like a lot will change for the two companies. The core Flattr team will remain in Malmö, Sweden, Sunde will be an advisor, and Flattr co-founder Linus Olsson will remain head of operations and implementation. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Insider Take:

Since Adblock Plus and Flattr were already partnering, this acquisition makes sense. The two companies’ services complement each other, and they have a similar vision for wanting to allow users to control what they read and what they block. Though Flattr boasts it has paid more than 30,000 online content creators and publishers since beginning in 2010, it isn’t clear if such micropayments and microdonations are substantial enough for publishers and other content creators to replace ad revenue lost because of ad blocking.