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?
Related Stories
Google Chrome will soon begin blocking all ads (including those served by Google) on websites that repeatedly include certain "non-compliant" (annoying) ads:
In June, Google revealed that Chrome will stop showing all ads (including those owned or served by Google) on websites that display non-compliant ads "starting in early 2018." Now the company has committed to a date: Chrome's built-in ad-blocker will start working on February 15, 2018.
[...] Google this year joined the Coalition for Better Ads, a group that offers specific standards for how the industry should improve ads for consumers — full-page ad interstitials, ads that unexpectedly play sound, and flashing ads are all banned. Yesterday, the coalition announced the Better Ads Experience Program, which provides guidelines for companies using the Better Ads Standards to improve users' experience with online ads.
[...] The hope is that Chrome's built-in ad blocker will stymie the usage of other third-party ad blockers that block all ads outright. Google has noted in the past that ad blockers that do not discriminate hurt publishers that create free content (like VentureBeat) and threaten "the sustainability of the web ecosystem." Despite the fact that Google makes the vast majority of its revenue from ads, the company sees its selective ad blocker as the natural evolution of pop-up blockers.
Also at Engadget, Variety, and 9to5Google.
Previously: Google Preparing to Filter "Unacceptable Ads" in 2018
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
Chrome 71 will block any and all ads on sites with "abusive experiences"
Google is promising to punish sites that offer what the company calls "abusive experiences." Chrome 71, due for release in December, will blacklist sites that are repeat offenders and suppress all advertising on those sites.
The behaviors deemed abusive cover a range of user-hostile things, such as ads that masquerade as system error messages, ads with fake close boxes that actually activate an ad when clicked, phishing, and malware. In general, if an ad is particularly misleading, destructive, or intrusive, it runs the risk of being deemed abusive.
Chrome already takes some actions against certain undesirable website behaviors; it tries to block popups, it limits autoplay of video, and it blocks certain kinds of redirection. These measures have been insufficient to prevent misleading or dangerous ads, hence Google taking further steps to banish them from the Web.
Also at The Verge, 9to5Google, Engadget, and Search Engine Journal.
Previously: Google Preparing to Filter "Unacceptable Ads" in 2018
Google Chrome to Begin Blocking "Non-Compliant Ads" on Feb. 15
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 03 2017, @12:27AM (2 children)
Breitbart, Drudge, and Zerohedge ads will be default-denied.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday June 03 2017, @12:43AM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @02:01PM
You alt-righters are so crazy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pino P on Saturday June 03 2017, @12:33AM
Will Google also filter pages that claim to be articles but are really just ads for a monthly subscription to a website that doesn't even carry over to other websites [blockadblock.com]? Google Search has, or at least used to have, an inconsistent attitude toward cloaing, where it would happily index URLs that present the full text to Googlebot but only an abstract to the public. Officially, Google discourages cloaking, but at times, it has allowed NPR and scholarly journals to cloak [searchenginewatch.com].
Will it be like the anti-adblock implemented on sites like WIRED, the INQUIRER, The Atlantic, and Jellynote [harvard.edu]? These sites deliberately block users who have enabled Firefox Tracking Protection [mozilla.org] rather than serving replacement ads [blockadblock.com] that don't use non-free JavaScript to track the user from one site to another [harvard.edu].
(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
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Saturday June 03 2017, @12:36AM (2 children)
Their browser, do what they want with it, fair enough I have a warning beforehand.
Would I have been using Chrome, I'd consider if I trust Google enough to limit itself to only what they announced as filtered out (I don't) and switch to another browser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 03 2017, @01:29AM (1 child)
It's handy to have Firefox and Chrome open side by side. I know they aren't supposed to, but sites often behave differently on the two browsers. That is partly due to the browsers, partly due to the addons I have installed on each browser. If something won't display in one, I go to the other. If my curiosity is really piqued, I can temporarily enable scripts, or whatever, to see the site.
Anyway, I use Chrome, but I'm not limited to whatever Chrome decides to display.
And, long story short, I don't mind my browsers being limited. The thing is, I want to decide for myself what those limits are.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday June 04 2017, @09:04PM
Why you would be a part of the Chrome botnet instead of using Chromium or Iridium is beyond me.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @03:26AM (1 child)
Like non-google ads? What's next? Blocking access to said sites?
Back in the day, at least they'd tell you to your face about how you got this nice business going over here, and how it would be a shame if something happened to it... These days, these fuckers can't even be bothered to do that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @04:09AM
It does seem like kind of bullshit to abuse your dominant position in browsers to literally demolish your advertising-business competition. That's the kind of shit that Microsoft got in trouble.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday June 03 2017, @04:39AM (1 child)
I keep the sound muted on my laptop, but today I was wasting my time on some random website when not one but two videos made it plainly apparent to my coworkers that I was fucking off.
After the second one I muted the sound but really I shouldn't have to do that.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @01:58PM
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday June 03 2017, @04:44AM (4 children)
a week ago I placed an Amazon order for this chemical deodorizer product called Room Shocker. I did this as a favor to a friend who hates tracking more than I do. He's strictly cash and doesn't have any form of ID.
Now facebook is showing me ads for Room Shocker. WTF?
The problem is that nearly all ads are served by some other site than the one you're trying to look at. Simply to GET the ads makes you trackable. Javascript isn't necessary this would be the case with static images.
I was using UBlock Origin with Pale Moon but switched to Chrome because Pale Moon's scrolling didn't work right in Facebook. Really the ads didn't bother me until Facebook demonstrated that they were in league with
the DevilAmazon.Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @02:11PM
The problem with these targeted ads is they are usually done in retarded ways. Just like you mentioned.
Say even if you genuinely bought Room Shocker for yourself, it's actually a waste of money advertising it to you since you already JUST BOUGHT IT! If you need more and it was OK you'd buy it again without need for adverts, and if it was crap, advertising it is more likely to make you remember to NOT buy it again.
Second issue is apparently there's a "long tail"/return period for adverts. Many advertisers know this and so they get their brand/name "everywhere" so most people at least recognize them. Seems to me Disney knows Barney etc are ready to take the kids mind-share that's why they haven't pulled all those Disney videos off Youtube.
Even 5 year old kids remember brand names... Might stick in their subconscious for years to come.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday June 03 2017, @05:25PM (2 children)
Facebook ads are especially moronic. The day after I bought a new TV they were showing ads for TVs. I just bought a TV, you imbeciles! Whenever I buy a book, they keep trying to sell me more copies of the same damned book. WTF, did those people all get dropped on their heads as babies?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @07:34PM (1 child)
I think this is actually amazon itself. i don't have facebook, I have amazon prime.
I buy stuff, then when i log in to watch some TV, Isee advertisements to the stuff I just bought.
I figure there's no point trying to fix it, since i don't care what the're advertising anyway...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 03 2017, @10:23PM
They seem to be doubling down on the "buy once, buy forever" concept with Amazon Dash buttons.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday June 03 2017, @05:21PM
A couple of years ago Google said that it was going to down-rank sites that didn't work well on a phone, but I still get a lot of pages served from Google News that shrink the entire page down to fit on the phone making them completely unreadable.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org