Lately, there has been a lot of talk among web advertisers about Google Chrome’s new built-in ad-block feature that’s about to come out. Not long ago, the Wall Street Journal released an article revealing Google’s new plans.
This is a pretty big announcement since Chrome is a widely used internet browser. Net Market Share reports Chrome having more than half of the browsing market. W3, an industry leader in web standards, also reports Chrome having 75.1% of the browser share as of March 2017.
After making a quick trip to the Chrome Web Store, you’ll find an abundance of Ad blocking services. AdBlock is the most popular Chrome extension, with over 40 million users employing it to block ads all over the web. Many of these extensions offer both free and paid versions. In fact, the paid version of AdBlock is almost as popular as the free version, with 10,000,000+ users.
One of the caveats of the paid versions is that sometimes websites can pay to be put on a whitelist, allowing their advertisements to bypass the AdBlock filters and be displayed to you. Google does pay to be a part of the AdBlock Plus whitelist, giving Google control over the ads that are blocked by this new feature.
As you can see, the addition of a paid version is sure to have a lot of implications, both positive and negative. Unfortunately, Chrome will not block every ad like the feature’s name implies. Google has made a statement:
“We’ve been working closely with the Coalition for Better Ads and industry trades to explore a multitude of ways Google and other members of the Coalition could support the Better Ads Standards.”
It is speculated that the blocked ads will be ones that are deemed “unacceptable ads” as defined by the Coalition for Better ads. More information about the Coalition for Better Ads can be found on their website.
Advertisements that have a video that automatically plays with sound, many pop-up ads, and advertisements with a countdown to skip have been deemed “below the threshold of consumer acceptability”, and thus will be blocked with this new Chrome feature. While we are not fully certain of what this feature will be like, the first look seems promising for Chrome users.
Advertisements are not supposed to be intrusive or annoying, and with these new standards being enforced, ads will blend into the user experience more seamlessly. Ads won’t be quite as annoying, and these new standards may spur advertisers to create ads that consumers will actually find interesting in hopes of avoiding the AdBlock feature. If companies don’t violate the standards, this new feature might actually increase the number of views your companies advertisement will generate.
Ultimately, we will have to wait and see what this potentially useful feature will bring to the table and whether or not it will change the way advertisement blockers function, as well as how much power Google will have over the browser market.
