SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Google plans to block "unacceptable" ads in Google Chrome starting in 2018, and is preparing publishers for this reality:
News that Google intends to install an ad-blocker in its Chrome browser shocked the tech and publishing world in April. Now, details of how the program will work are starting to become clear.
The Google ad-blocker will block all advertising on sites that have a certain number of "unacceptable ads," according to The Wall Street Journal. That includes ads that have pop-ups, auto-playing video, and "prestitial" count-down ads that delay the display of content.
[...] The company hasn't made its plans public, but Google has discussed its plans with publishers, who will get at least six months to prepare for the change coming sometime in 2018. Publishers will get a tool called "Ad Experience Reports," which "will alert them to offending ads on their sites and explain how to fix the issues," the Journal reports.
Google is also offering a tool called "Funding Choices," which would present users who have non-Chrome ad blockers with a message asking them to disable their ad-blockers or pay to remove advertising.
When you open a YouTube video, it typically auto-plays an advertisement.
Will this become Google's antitrust moment?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday June 03 2017, @12:33AM (12 children)
Unfortunately these days there are more and more sights I really do need to access that just aren't websites at all. Sometimes, there's just no way to proceed without running google chrome. Inside a condom^wVM of course. Which isn't allowed to save anything to disk.
And of course the top 3k adserve sites are simply blocked at the router as well.
All of this is great as far as it goes, but it's the scorched-earth tactics of an army that is being forced from the field, and I'm not happy with that. More is needed.
So far I've found this:
https://adnauseam.io/
If, like me, you find yourself forced to use an insecure browser by these unconscionable and abusive tactics, please, don't just give up. Monkey-wrench the bastards.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday June 03 2017, @01:28AM (1 child)
Implemented the right way, this could be that monkey wrench to the advertisers. The problem with micropayments is the payment processing portion of it. If Google has developed a way to address that, then it could be quite deadly.
There is some content I do feel like accessing from time and time at a reasonable price. If SoylentNews popped up something with the 'Funding Options' that could collect a micropayment for each view, we could literally get the views paid for. Isn't that the idea at some point? Properly compensate the site operators to keep the site operating, and content can be continued to be added by the community?
Right now it seems that the only options are Saas offerings to get paid, which means you need to actually offer services with it, or going the advertising route and adding a malware path for your "audience". As a result, SaaS offerings have got better and more mature, while the other route has gone to shit. Articles designed to be consumed 12 pages at a time, content effectively censored because it involves 3rd party tracking and marketing platform, and sites that are egregiously designed only to service the advertisers.
This could be another option, and that's competition to advertising. Anytime advertising comes up against competition it loses, with the notable exception of SonicBlue and ReplayTV. It never wins against piracy removing its content, and adblockers are effective enough that once ubiquitous sounds the death knell for the industry.
Ultimately they will lose utterly because machine learning and the birth of AI will eventually service the individual, and not marketing channels. Once people can excise advertising from their lives, by and large, they make that choice. These are steps towards progress and the death of advertising as we know it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Monday June 12 2017, @07:01PM
Isn't "funding choices" basically what Brave [brave.com] is trying to do? Might be more successful given the radical difference in reach between each company.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 03 2017, @01:35AM (3 children)
"automating Ad clicks universally and blindly on behalf of its users."
Okay, so it poisons the well. But, doesn't money change hands? Isn't someone profiting, at someone's expense? End result is, the ad companies are making money? If your goal is to block and/or confuse the trackers, aren't there simpler ways to do that? For starters, block the tracking sites. http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/ [yoyo.org] No need to poison the well, if they don't even see you.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday June 03 2017, @01:39AM (2 children)
In the short term, yes, this inflates their hits.
In the longer term it deflates the presumed value of their 'hits' however.
If you're an advertiser and you're paying more money every month and seeing less benefit from that money, what do you do next?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 03 2017, @02:04AM (1 child)
Fall back on radio advertising, and local newspapers.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday June 03 2017, @03:12AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @04:24PM
You are unable to access some sites without using google chrome?
what sites are you accessing?
the last time that happened to me, was when doing IT support for a small firm that had a marquee in their cafeteria that required a google account to manage it, and I'd never encountered it before and anything that tried to get to the logon page of it would open an xml file instead of the webpage locally hosted on it (that then redirected the login to google).
aside from that... i have never used chrome and don't expect to unless my employer says we have to use chrome or will be fired or something. chrome is like flash. hard to get rid of once in place, but the net is so much better without it.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday June 03 2017, @05:17PM (4 children)
Homophone alert, it's "sites" not "sights."
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by Arik on Saturday June 03 2017, @05:46PM (3 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @07:31PM (1 child)
so you're saying you were misunderestimated.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Sunday June 04 2017, @06:54AM
"Unfortunately these days there are more and more sights I really do need to access that just aren't websites at all."
Emphasis added for your benefit:
"Unfortunately these days there are more and more *sights* I really do need to access that just aren't web*sites* at all."
These things of which I speak are "sights" - they are things to be seen, but unfortunately they are not "websites" - accessible locations on the world wide web.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday June 04 2017, @01:33PM
I still don't get the joke.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org