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from the that's-a-nice-ad-you-have-there dept.
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: 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.