We’re all aware of the annoying and intrusive advertisements which randomly pop-up on our browser screen, begging us to interact with them to be able to navigate to the content we want to access. This unfavorable user experience could lead users to adopt the ad blocking route to get some relief in their browsing experience.
This direction makes both content creators and advertisers suffer at their expense. Hence, this problem is now being looked into by Google, who plans to streamline the advert categories while baking an ad-blocker into Chrome by early next year. This development falls in line with rumors that the search giant was planning to debut a built-in ad blocker with an upcoming Chrome update.
Google has today announced that it has joined the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry group dedicated to improving online ads. It will define adverts it will pass or block based on the standard guidelines defined by this organization. This means the search giant is looking to eliminate pop-ups, auto-playing videos with sound, prestitials with a countdown, and other large persistent banners from Chrome.
Speaking about improved ad support in Chrome, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior VP, Ads and Commerce at Google said,
Chrome has always focused on giving you the best possible experience browsing the web. For example, it prevents pop-ups in new tabs based on the fact that they are annoying. In dialogue with the Coalition and other industry groups, we plan to have Chrome stop showing ads (including those owned or served by Google) on websites that are not compliant with the Better Ads Standards starting in early 2018.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the search giant is not planning to completely eliminate ads from being accessible on its widely popular browser offering. The report mentions that Chrome will introduce built-in advertising filters to better the overall browsing experience for its users. It is possible that Google will expand on its existing toolset to prevent excessive pop-ups from surfacing on-screen while also warning users if they’re exposed to any harmful content.
It has further been suggested that Google has already started reaching out to publishers to make them aware of the changes which are in store, so they’re not met with sudden surprises when their payouts or ads get blocked. There is currently no information on what guideline updates the search giant is planning to introduce.
Reports, however, suggest that it will offer content creators a new tool to flag ads that may run afoul to its ad filters — coming early in 2018. The ads it will deem suitable have already been defined above, where Google has announced its recent collaboration with the Coalition for Better Ads. It will be interesting to see Google’s own approach to ad-blocking, especially when it is also the search giant’s primary revenue source.
