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Google's Crackdown on "Annoying" and "Disruptive" Ads Begins

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday February 15 2018, @07:51PM   
from the that's-a-nice-ad-you-have-there dept.

takyon writes:

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

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Original Submission

• So, does that include... So, does that include... (Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday February 16 2018, @08:04AM (1 child)

  by Reziac (2489) on Friday February 16 2018, @08:04AM (#638739) Homepage

  ....annoying Youtube ads??

  --
  And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		2

• Both ad formats on video sharing sites are exempt (Score: 3, Informative) by Pino P on Saturday February 17 2018, @03:38AM

  by Pino P (4721) on Saturday February 17 2018, @03:38AM (#639188) Journal

  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:

  Preroll video

  The Better Ads Standards [betterads.org] have not yet banned preroll video ads before a relevant video. From the "Ad Experience: Auto-playing Video Ads with Sound" section [betterads.org]:

  The Better Ads Methodology has not yet tested video ads that appear before (“pre-roll”) or during (“mid-roll”) video content that is relevant to the content of the page itself.

  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.

  Static pop-ups

  The "Ad Experience: Pop-up Ads" section [betterads.org] has an Interpretative Advisory [betterads.org] that exempts pop-ups that appear within the frame of an image, video, or game and cover less than 30 percent of its area. This includes, for example, static text or image pop-ups in the lower third.

  Parent