For a company that makes most of its money through advertising revenues, you would think that ad blockers are public enemy number one for Google. And you would be right for the most part, but it seems that Google has adopted the “if you can’t beat them, join them” attitude. That’s right, Google is allegedly looking to introduce an ad-blocker in both mobile and desktop versions of Google Chrome.
The report comes from The Wall Street Journal which states that the ad-blocker would filter out certain online ad types deemed to provide bad experiences for users as they move around the web. Furthermore, according to people familiar with the Alphabet’s subsidiary’s plans, the feature will be enabled by default.
Google’s plans to add an ad-blocker to the popular internet browser may seem counterintuitive but could, in fact, help Google by stemming the rise of third party plugins that most people employ. By enabling their own ad-blocker, they could retain some modicum of control over the process and could still generate some revenue from ads; many ad-blockers charge companies a fee to let their ads slip by.
However, the default unacceptable ad types that would be blocked are those that were recently defined by the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry group that released a list of ad standards in March. According to those standards, ad formats such as autoplaying video ads with sound, pop-ups, and “prestitial” ads with countdown timers are evaluated below a certain threshold of consumer acceptability.
According to The Wall Street Journal, one such category where Google may exercise their ad-blocking power is in regards to websites that displays offending ads. Rather than just block the individual offending ads, Google may block all the ads displayed, prompting site owners to ensure that all of their ads meet the standards defined by the Coalition for Better Ads.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
