Google just announced that Chrome will automatically block certain ads starting next year. The company told publishers they have at least six months to prepare for the new ad blocking tool.
Chrome’s new feature will filter out ads that have been classified “unacceptable” by the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry coalition which includes companies like the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the digital ad world’s number one trade group.
Chrome will have new ‘filter’ to block annoying ads
Unacceptable ads include four types of desktop ads and eight type of mobile ads that are particularly annoying to people, such as video ads that play automatically with sound, flashing, animated mobile ads and interstitial ads that take over a phone’s screen and count down until they disappear.
Google said the decision to get rid of these ads was made because they want to clean up the web, which is good news for consumers and publishers who are trying to advertise correctly.
Google’s own sites will mostly be unaffected by the new tools, but according to Scott Spencer, director of product management at Google, it is possible that other publishers that Google sells ads for as part of the “Google Display Network” will be affected and consequently will have to eliminate some of their ad inventory.
Experts believe Google’s new move was decided to benefit itself. However, Spencer said it’s not the case, as he believes that what’s good for the broader digital media industry is good for Google.
“There are certain ad experiences that occur on the web that are annoying to consumers. They are the worst of the worst that drive people to use ad blockers, ” said Spencer, according to Business Insider. “Ad blocking is a threat to that ecosystem. It harms good publishers.”
He added that Google doesn’t exist without the open web, which is why, in this case, they have aligned incentives.
Google is also launching ‘Funding Choices’ tool
Google described the new tool as an advertising “filter” as opposed to a “blocker” and compared it to existing features in Chrome, which are designed to block pop-up windows or to warn consumers they are visiting a page with malicious software, or malware.
Google profits from online advertisement, as just last Google-parent Alphabet Inc.’s revenue for online ads was more than $90 billion. Consumers have been turning more to ad blockers in recent years, and surveys show around 26 percent of U.S. web users employ the software on their desktop devices, as reported by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
According to The Wall Street Journal on the latest news about Google, along with the new filter, Google is also pitching publishers a new tool called “Funding Choices,” which is designed to counteract the effects of ad blockers of other companies. If publishers include that tool on their sites, consumers with ad blockers turned on would receive a message prompting them to disable their blockers to access the content, or to pay for a “pass” to remove advertising entirely.
Source: Business Insider