Wednesday, December 20th 2017
Google Chrome's Integrated AdBlocker to Go Live on February 15th
In what is certainly a major step forward for Internet advertising and the way these are delivered to users, Google has announced that their in-Chrome AdBlocker, which will ship embedded on the Chrome web browser, should be up, running, and being distributed in installation packages by February 15th. This move by google comes after the company joined a voluntary association in the form of the Coalition for Better Ads Experience Program, which aims to better the Internet - and its ads - on both consumers and publishers. This coalition's aim is to define standards for advertising, marking ads as either acceptable or not under the standard's rules, and will "certify web publishers that agree not to use the most disruptive ads identified in the Standards and will accredit browsers and advertising technology companies that will assess publishers' compliance with the Standards and filter digital ads based on the Standards."
Following its integration in the Better Ads Coalition, google will officially activate its AdBlocker on February 15th, whose criteria for blocking ads will be based off of the Coalition's white and black listing of websites and ads according to whether or not they conform to the body's advertising Standards. Google wrote on a developers blog post that "Starting on February 15, in line with the Coalition's guidelines, Chrome will remove all ads from sites that have a "failing" status in the Ad Experience Report for more than 30 days."
Pop-up ads, auto-play video ads with sound, prestitial ads with countdowns and large sticky ads have all been identified as falling below the Better Ads Standard on desktops. For mobile environments, the Coalition has identified pop-up ads, prestitial ads, ads with density greater than 30 percent, flashing animated ads, auto-play video ads with sound, poststitial ads with countdowns, full-screen scrollover ads and large sticky ads as being non-acceptable.
Google itself is taking a pretty heavy approach with the Chrome-embedded ad-blocking: a single ad on a page that is categorized as non conforming with the Coalition's Standards will push Chrome to block all ads on that page, even if all others are in compliance with the Standards. It seems that the fight against ads has received a heavy nudge in the right direction. Even so, users should always remain cautious; Google makes most of its revenue out of ads. That a Google product is now shipping with an integrated adblocker may truly fit in the company's "Do no Evil" philosophy, and have only the best intentions in mind. However, one also has to consider that with a Chrome-integrated adblocker, Google can also pick and choose exactly which ads are serviceable for their customer's (and Google's) needs or not, giving the company even more fine-grained control on what is displayed on users' screens.
Sources:
Coalition for Better Ads Experience Program, Google, Coalition's Ad Categories PDF, via TechSpot
Following its integration in the Better Ads Coalition, google will officially activate its AdBlocker on February 15th, whose criteria for blocking ads will be based off of the Coalition's white and black listing of websites and ads according to whether or not they conform to the body's advertising Standards. Google wrote on a developers blog post that "Starting on February 15, in line with the Coalition's guidelines, Chrome will remove all ads from sites that have a "failing" status in the Ad Experience Report for more than 30 days."
31 Comments on Google Chrome's Integrated AdBlocker to Go Live on February 15th
But those are third party apps/extensions, and I don't think giving Google (a seller of adverts) control/dominion over what adverts should/shouldn't be seen online is a good idea.
And I agree with you on those accounts. It has to be supervised to ensure there is really no foul play here.
Though if there is the option to block all I'd like it and will use it, otherwise I keep using ABP.
The thing is, they can simply decide to design a type of ads the Chrome won't block. That's the road I don't want to take.
This isn't the case of Google just deciding to block whatever ads they feel like.
At the same time, no harm has been done and I tend to like things Google does. I'm simply noticing there's a possibility things could go wrong sometime in the future.
I'm not too worried about Google employing all sorts of trickery here, because there is no question in my mind that for example the EU will carefully watch this unfold. In fact it may do the opposite - the ad business really needs to de-escalate in every way and this is one possible way of doing it. At the same time there is already a win in this for Google. This is an awesome way to strengthen their brand and the AdSense proposition.
In my mind it can't really get much worse than it is today - we're already getting malware through ads and they are already page filling, pop up, autoplayed content, scrolling bars and all that other nonsense. In the end, we can always block things ourselves. I think the realization is starting to sink in that people are losing trust in ads they get served, and this will hurt the business far more than ad blocking does. When people lose trust, the value of ads will quickly and sharply drop, quite similar to how currencies work.
An extra ad blocker is nice, but I'll be using this in conjunction with Ublock Origin and Adblock Plus, not in place of.
i use ABP(chrome+firefox) and quite happy with it even is not blocking 100% ...