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Critics wary as Google's Chrome begins an ad crackdown
On Thursday, Google will begin using its Chrome browser to eradicate ads it deems annoying or otherwise detrimental to users. It just so happens that many of Google's own most lucrative ads will sail through its new filters. The move, which Google first floated back in June, is ostensibly aimed at making online advertising more tolerable by flagging sites that run annoying ads such as ones that auto-play video with sound. And it's using a big hammer: Chrome will start blocking all ads — including Google's own — on offending sites if they don't reform themselves.
There's some irony here, given that Google's aim is partly to convince people to turn off their own ad-blocking software. These popular browser add-ons deprive publishers (and Google) of revenue by preventing ads from displaying.
Google vice president Rahul Roy-Chowdhury wrote in a blog post that the company aims to keep the web healthy by "filtering out disruptive ad experiences."
But the company's motives and methods are both under attack. Along with Facebook, Google dominates the online-advertising market; together they accounted for over 63 percent of the $83 billion spent on U.S. digital ads last year, according to eMarketer. Google is also virtually synonymous with online search, and Chrome is the most popular browser on the web, with a roughly 60 percent market share. So to critics, Google's move looks less like a neighborhood cleanup than an assertion of dominance.
Is this Google's antitrust moment? (Is this a recycled comment?)
- Under the hood: How Chrome's ad filtering works
- The Initial Better Ads Standards
- Exclusive: Industry Experts On The Impact Of Google Chrome's Ad Blocker
Previously: Google Preparing to Filter "Unacceptable Ads" in 2018
Google Chrome to Begin Blocking "Non-Compliant Ads" on Feb. 15
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:09PM (7 children)
Not trolling ...
I really, really hope some large advertising company or industry group uses Google over this and loses. This could be the opportunity to get legal precedent that says "we get to decide what code runs in our browsers and on our devices". Malicious advertisers be damned.
It's a pipe dream, I know. But Google has too much at stake not to defend its position.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:15PM
> I really, really hope some large advertising company or industry group uses Google over this
I guess you posted using a Android phone, and the autocorrect spotted "sues Google" as a 4th directive infringing statement.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:21PM (4 children)
Why do you need legal precedent for that?
Under what justification would such a lawsuit be filed, anyway?
It seems to me like your view of the world is not quite right.
(Score: 2) by leftover on Thursday February 15 2018, @10:29PM (1 child)
Precedent established in a trial funded by deep pockets would enable inexpensive and low risk suits by small fry. It is a very big deal in the US.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 16 2018, @01:27AM
I don't understand what needs a precedent.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday February 16 2018, @06:49AM (1 child)
It's one thing for YOU to go out and fetch an ad blocker.
It's quite another for a web browser to arbitrarily decide for you which ads it will allow.
(Not saying this is my opinion, simple pointing out the basis for a law suit.)
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday February 16 2018, @10:56PM
You mean, like Brave browser (ads can pay to be whitelisted) or IE (blocks Chrome ads)?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:22PM
Switch to Firefox
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mobydisk on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:21PM (1 child)
Chrome, especially Chrome for Android, is awful at handling ads that redirect you to other sites. Lots of us have problems with visiting what should be legitimate web sites, only to find an ad just trigger 5 redirects to a site that says "YOUR ____ MODEL PHONE HAS A VIRUS!" with a Google logo. And of course, the back button doesn't work. It shouldn't allow those redirects at all since I didn't click anything, and if it does allow them, the back button shouldn't let the page just instantly forward me again.
Not that the advertiser doesn't also bear responsibility here, but fixing the browser's security flaw would greatly ease the burden on the end-user.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mobydisk on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:28PM
Oh, they are doing that too!
https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/8/16617794/chrome-redirect-blocking-announced-google [theverge.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:23PM (18 children)
Google vice president Rahul Roy-Chowdhury wrote in a blog post that the company aims to keep the web healthy by "filtering out disruptive ad experiences."
The best way to do this is to use an ad-blocker, to filter out all ads. There's no such thing as a non-disruptive ad experience.
(To be fair, there used to be something close back when Google did those little text-only ads, but that wasn't good enough for the advertisers.)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:51PM (9 children)
> There's no such thing as a non-disruptive ad experience.
Product placement.
The next step is NPR's spoken ads, with no music. It still takes you off topic, but in a much less in-your-face way. The web equivalent is a paragraph in a simple font without gimmicks.
But obviously, thousands of people who have to feed themselves do pretend that consumers won't buy as much if you don't attract their attention with flashy gimmicks, as if they were 10 months old. Sadly, they're not necessarily wrong.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:56PM
You have a point there, though I'd say your "web equivalent" of the NPR ad is basically the text-only google ads I mentioned previously as an exception. But yeah, product placement is the other biggie.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday February 15 2018, @09:30PM (6 children)
No, they don't - an alternative has been offered [democraticunderground.com].
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday February 17 2018, @03:24AM (5 children)
Once those who work in advertising technology commit mass suicide, prepare for many, perhaps the majority, of your favorite websites to go behind a paywall.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday February 19 2018, @11:18PM (4 children)
A _VERY_ small price to pay.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday March 14 2018, @04:05PM (3 children)
Say you visit 20 different websites. Would you want to pay $5.99 per site per month times 20 sites times 12 months per year = $1437.60 per year for access to websites?
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday March 16 2018, @04:27AM (2 children)
You really need to shop around a bit more for a provider.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday March 16 2018, @03:45PM (1 child)
A provider of what?
If you are referring to Internet service providers: I wasn't referring to ISPs that violate net neutrality.
If you are referring to providers of news and editorial articles: Their publishers own copyright in the articles that they publish and thus have the legal privilege to deny a license to their articles to any syndication service.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday March 17 2018, @02:29AM
Actually I was, because I misread your post :(
Sorry about that.
I was also suggesting that no website is worth $5.99 per month. Except that I just realised that that's about what I pay for Wikipedia. I blame the lack of coffee yesterday.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday February 15 2018, @10:21PM
That woman who does the spoken ads on NPR sounds robotically creepy.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday February 15 2018, @09:00PM (5 children)
I respectfully disagree; it's possible for ads (a working definition: content designed to showcase something other than what you are reading, especially commercial content but not only that) to be placed out of the way, for them to be on-topic (helpful, even), for them to be served by the site you trust rather than a malware-ad-farm, for them to be unobtrusive in design, coloration, etc.
It's not a common thing, sure, but there are certainly a minority of non-disruptive ads.
Because many people make what I consider to be poor choices, rewarding the worst, disruptive ads get more clicks (instead of being rightfully shunned) (parallel to spam being effective because of that % of people that actually patronize spammers).
FTS:
Sounds to me like they want me using Chrome to block ads instead of adblock/ublock/pi-hole/hphosts/other local solution.
And since most "ad experiences" are negative, filtering out the "disruptive" ones would be a good start.
No, that does not mean that I am going to start using Chrome, but Google is an 800-lb Online Gorilla and if they can get advertisers to tone it down, I would appreciate that.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday February 15 2018, @09:13PM (1 child)
ADS THAT AREN'T ANNOYING? SURE. IT'S POSSIBLE FOR ALL CAPS NOT TO BE ANNOYING. IT'S EVEN POSSIBLE FOR BLINKING TEXT NOT TO BE AGGRAVATING. IT'S MORE LIKELY THAN PIGS FLYING.
AND NOW A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSORS: YOUR WINDOWS COMPUTER IS INFECTED WITH A VIRUS. SO IS YOUR BRAIN. IT'S LIKE TOXOPLASMA GONDII, ONLY IT MAKES YOU LIKE ADS INSTEAD OF CATS.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday February 16 2018, @12:21AM
Well! At least we agree.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday February 16 2018, @12:46AM (2 children)
I respectfully disagree: Advertising is inherently disruptive.
The reason is that, as you just said, it's designed to showcase something other than what you're trying to focus on. And I know full well that I'm not focused on trying to buy a thingamajig, because if I were I would have searched for something like "Thingamajig", and found all sorts of companies happy to sell me one.
Now, you might say "Well, but what about finding about products that could solve your problem that you hadn't thought of?" And again, advertising per se doesn't help: If I'm trying to do something I have no experience doing, I'm going to start by looking up how to do the thing, and if all the received wisdom is that a whatchamacallit would be a very useful item to have when doing that thing, I can then look for "Whatchamacallit", and again find what it is I'm looking for and how to use it. Whereas if I'm trying to solve one problem, and I'm seeing an ad for the solution to another problem, or if I already have a whatchamacallit and am looking at these instructions for hints about how to use it, that ad is distracting me from the information I actually need.
The kinds of ads we're talking about are about 1 thing: Putting something in front of your senses that you didn't ask for in the hopes it will convince you to buy something you didn't actually want.
Print ads served a purpose in the days before basic information on any product you could ever imagine was a few clicks away. Now, they serve basically no purpose. Have your company website, tell search engines how to find you and to index your stuff so they know what you have, and now your customers can find you.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday February 16 2018, @01:25AM (1 child)
Just curious.
What would you think about a disclosed affiliate link to go buy a gizmo-9000 as part of a review of the gizmo-9000, for example? (And what if your government was threatening to make gizmo-9000's unavailable very soon?)
A social media post asking one's friends to support a local charity's fundraiser?
"The content of the 'Dixie Soap Flakes Blog And YouTube Channel' is brought to you by the Dixie Soap Flakes Company [example.com]?"
Is there any way at all for an advertisement to be helpful, on-topic, and informative?
I don't have a dog in the fight, I am just trying to profit from your contradictory view.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday February 16 2018, @01:56AM
If I saw that, I'd assume that the review of the gizmo-9000 was probably painting a rosier picture of the gizmo-9000 than it actually deserved, in the hopes of getting more people to click the affiliate link.
Then I really am not likely to want one, for a bunch of reasons: (A) The government might have a good reason for banning the gizmo-9000 - not guaranteed, but might. (B) It's going to be much harder to find replacement parts of the gizmo-9000 should I need them. (C) The claim that "the government is going to make this unavailable" is about as likely as "It's selling out fast! Buy it now or you won't get one!" i.e. complete BS. (D) If the government is banning it, that probably means that either a substitute that is at least as good as a gizmo-9000 is available, or a gizmo-9000 doesn't do anything important or useful.
That one's substantially better, provided that said local charity isn't paying the salary of said poster or that relationship is disclosed, and it's done fairly infrequently (no more than, say, once every 3 months or so).
This one is OK because you've presumably come across the channel and blog by searching for "Dixie Soap Flakes". I'm going to assume that everything on said blog and channel is created by the Dixie Soap Flakes Company, and is designed to sell me more Dixie Soap Flakes. Youtube isn't really a social network as much as a hosting service + a search engine, and the blog should of course be found on the Dixie Soap Flakes website.
Without any kind of affiliate links, and with full disclosure of any sources of funding: "Here are the 10 different kinds of whoosywhatsits that we could easily find on the market. Here are their specifications, and the MSRPs of each of them. Here's what we found out when we tested them in the 20 ways whoosywhatsits are designed to be used."
And yeah, I know all those kinds of restrictions make it harder to move product. So what? If the product isn't useful, it shouldn't be moved!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday February 16 2018, @03:00AM (1 child)
"Ask my mom why she likes advertising"
"Why do you like advertising?"
"It tells my what to buy"
That you dislike ads doesn't imply that nobody else does
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by KiloByte on Friday February 16 2018, @03:25PM
That your mom would also take up a nice business offer from a Nigerian prince doesn't mean fraud is good. And advertising is nothing but a kind of fraud.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:43PM (5 children)
Even if the sun and the planets align and the user base accepts this built in ad blocking capability, it will eventually go down hill when the inevitable occurs and Google takes money to allow ads through the block. Users will continue to install third party less biased ad blocking plugins. Is G trying to shoot themselves in the foot?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @09:25PM (3 children)
Just the ruling class trying to control who can make money from internet content and who cannot.
I guarantee disruptive ads will include certainly some of the worst offenders, but it will also happen to be that ads for companies that aren't international monopolies are "disruptive." It's the same way that independent news sites, usually those with a political bias on the left and a penchant for criticism of the D team, were included with fake news when Google wanted to curate their News product.
I'm just wondering how long it'll be until ISPs start charging insane fees to access the larger internet outside of
AmericaGoogle Online keywords.Google won't be shooting themselves in the foot. They and others made sure that the web suffers so horribly from the inner platform effect that it's impossible for anybody who isn't bankrolled by a megacorp to create an independent rendering engine.
I wish I knew what could be done about it.
Computing technology evolved too fast for the common person to understand.
But it could be that the common person is happy being a cow. Plus, there is vastly more censorship coming before the ruling class can start World War 3, and... you know? I think most people want it to happen.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday February 15 2018, @10:01PM
There's really no pleasing some people. This change is good for users, remember?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @10:35PM (1 child)
"We have always been at war with Syrania."
(Score: 3, Touché) by captain normal on Friday February 16 2018, @12:56AM
Ahh...yes. The next World War will be against Anonymous Cowards.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday February 15 2018, @11:12PM
No, just to charge the annoying ads much higher.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 16 2018, @02:29AM
Really? I should Bing that just to be sure.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday February 16 2018, @08:04AM (1 child)
....annoying Youtube ads??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Pino P on Saturday February 17 2018, @03:38AM
By "YouTube ads", I assume you refer to advertisements on a partner or claimed video hosted by YouTube. YouTube and its best-known competitors, such as Dailymotion, currently run two ad formats on such videos:
In the case of a video viewed on YouTube.com, "the page itself" is the video's own description page, and the video is certainly relevant to that.