EE, the UK's largest mobile carrier, is carrying out a "strategic review" on whether it should block ads before they appear on customers' smartphones.

Speaking to The Telegraph, EE's CEO Olaf Swantee said that "this is not about ad blocking, but about starting an important debate around customer choice, controls and the level of ads customers receive." His primary concern is "intrusive or crass" adverts that he says can "drive people crazy."

Ad blocking, as you may've heard, is a rather hot topic right now. Over the last year or so, a few connectivity providers have mooted the idea of network-level ad blocking, but EE, which has some 27 million customers, is the most high-profile company to publicly state that it's actively investigating the possibility.

According to Swantee, EE isn't looking to block mobile ads entirely, but rather about offering "more choice and control over the level and intensity of ads on mobile." The current stable of mobile ads (mostly little banners) aren't producing a whole lot of clicks, and so some companies are now resorting to ads that more intrusive. If the ads continue to get worse and worse, then EE has two very good reasons to block them: a) it wants its customers to have a good experience when surfing the Web, and b) blocking ads would reduce the amount of data downloaded, improving performance for everyone on the mobile cell.

There has been a lot of posturing from various stakeholders (ad-funded websites, Web browsers, carriers) in recent months, to see who will flinch first. EE surely knows that the bulk of the free Web relies on advertising revenue to stay afloat, and there could be all sorts of regulatory—Ofcom, net neutrality, department of trade—issues if it does actually push ahead with widescale ad blocking. More likely, this is EE's way of signalling to the advertising industry that it should back down on some of its more intrusive mobile ads.

Long-term, of course, depending on net neutrality pans out in the US and EU, there is the possibility that carriers and ISPs will become the gatekeepers of online advertising. In much the same way that millions of users run ad-blocking extensions in their Web browsers, connectivity providers could offer opt-in systems that block ads at the network level, saving valuable bandwidth, memory, and CPU cycles. And, of course, just like ad-blocking add-ons, these connectivity providers might also let advertising networks pay their way onto a whitelist.

EE's Swantee didn't say how long the strategic review will last, nor what he expects the outcome to be.