May sound weird at first. But it may or may not actually make sense in the long run. Forcing their own adpartners to adhere to certain "OK-ish standards" may or may not bring down adblocker usage in the long run. Me personally, I don't mind non-intrusive ads, as long as they don't track me (Privacy Badger is helping with that a little). Been only using Privacy Badger for a while now and haven't seen a lot of ads around, but those I do are mostly OK.
Google, as usual, didn't comment on it for obvious reasons.
Exactly. I use adblock because it's just my preference and I really don't care if they track me. What I do care about is javascript, Java or Flash taking up 80% of my CPU to display amazon's recommended items.
That's interesting. If google didn't comment, where's the info coming from?
This is genius, though it's obviously not going to block YouTube pre rolls which IMO is one of the biggest reasons average people use ad blockers. It could make a small dent in getting people to allow ads again but I have a feeling it won't be significant enough.
I'm with you OP. Ads run the free internet so if they were to disappear the internet would be less available to the poor. I run adblocker because of security and privacy reasons, not for blocking ads, so if there was standardization to advertisements to adhere to privacy and security concerns I'd not have adblock at all.
I disabled Java and Flash is click-to-load by default in all browsers (except Safari I think?) now, so... no big deal.
Well where do we get the latest tech specs well in advance of hardware releases and where do we get the latest NSA spying news
That thought crossed my mind too, but then I read the thing about the Consortium of.. whatever ads. Also if they did they'd have a huge cartel case on their butts, so... not really likely
Probably not, but honestly I don't really mind them. As long as it's not the 30-sec-non-skippable version. It's just 5 seconds, channel and google gets some cents, whatever (is there such a thing as auto-skip after 5 seconds?). And the non-skippables are supposed to go away at some point, as far as I remember.
It's not just the internet though. It's greater then that. The big print outlets have been struggling for years because most people get their news from the internet now (obviously), and with so much ad-blocking going around the revenue has shrunk to dangerous low. At some point journalism as a whole is at risk. There's a reason those outlets are using the anti-adblock stuff, and it's not just to annoy you. It's because they need some goddamn money to do their jobs. And lets be honest, most people just take them bein free for granted and don't think about it. They don't pay for a subscription because news to be free is a given for most people these days. Then there's also newsreaders that filter ads from the start and just display the plain text (even the Windows News App does this).
If you want a case study in how shitty this can potentially be, check out brave browser's system
They rob content creators by replacing their ads with their own if you don't pay to use the ad blocker, essentially holding your browsing experience hostage on both ends.
Google is just doing this to get an edge over other online advertisers though. Just label any advertising not being served by adsense objectionable and bam, a huge portion of market share is taken from their competitors on the most popular browser.
While this is true, the guidelines to what ads are "OK" are not only authored by google, but by various other ad networks are well (the whole coalition thing mentioned in the article). As I understand (and if someone has more knowledge about this please educate me) they defined a few "nogo" forms of ads, and the rest would be allowed.
In the end even google has to abide by cartel laws. Also, as I read this the user should still have saying if all ads are blocked or only "unacceptable" ones. Google is already under heavy fire in the EU, for supposed abusing of their market power. This adblock thing might even help for them in that case. The company that delivers the ads providing you with an adblocker for their own most popular browser? Sounds weird, but it may help them even.
And on the other side of the coin then... if they did actually block everything except their own ads, they'd basically hand themselves on a silver tray to the trade commisions.
Not saying it's not a possibility, but imo highly unlikely, they're not stupid, especially after the whole Android fiasco in Russia just last week.
No, nothing as straightforward as blocking all other advertising providers. Just the ones making the most money. (The ones advertising on objectionable and alternative platforms that google won't be able to compete with if it wants to maintain PR buzzword compliance)
Shake in a bit of malvertising blocking/control and the product looks great and gets the job done while stifling potential competitors.
Rollout the intermediate option as default a few months in and you choke the life out of anything adsense can't make money on.
Oh I don't think anyone is saying that I just think they are seeing the larger picture in the long run. Getting acceptable ads on website so people stop using ad blockers.
Well, it's similar to what AdBlock Plus was doing. The thing with ABP is just that they let people buy onto their "acceptable ads" list.
To be honest, I always kinda liked the idea of an acceptable ads list, if it was free/open source/whatever of course. Blocking the shit ads but then still "rewarding" sites that use decent ads to finance their servers. That's totally fine by me. Once companies can buy their way onto the "acceptable ads" list however it goes to shit.
Technically probably possible, but there we are again with the trade commissions. When files suit against them it would probably hurt them more in the long run then then help them in the short. And sure the damage may have already been done by then, but with fines to pay to their "victims" those could probably just open a new platform.
Idk, I never thought of google as "evil" per sé though. I mean, yeah they've done a lot of shit over the years, but ad companies they just bought in bulk when they got a problem with them...
Without going on a long rant about how the ad delivery system is broken and compromised. Google is the number one cause of the devaluing of baked in ad space on websites. No level of acceptable ads is acceptable without the revaluing the ad web space that gets curated by the website itself.
still i say remove all the analytical info grabbing from ads and remove the tracking from ads and the cookies and we will be in a bit of a better place. all ads that have data collection other than click +1 in them are bad ads in my eyes.
all ads that are not static are bad ads ( i dont want to watch your mini movie i dont want to see you flashing like a billboard nor do i want your full screen take over or popup.
I consider it fraud as it is not actually an ad blocker. Just other peoples ads.
I just think they are seeing the larger picture in the long run. Getting acceptable ads on website so people stop using ad blockers.