How Google Chrome’s Ad Blocker Will Target the Worst Offenders
Goodbye pesky pop-ups.
by Danny PaezOnly a day before Google will actively begin blocking “intrusive” ads on Chrome, it has announced exactly how it will crack down on the most sinister spam. Autoplay videos and full-page ads beware.
In collaboration with the Coalition for Better Ads, Google has written out the guidelines of what counts as invasive advertisement — aptly named The Better Ad Standards — which is also outlined in the video above. A sample size of 40,000 internet users across North America and Europe were surveyed to determine what type of ads detracted from their browsing experience the most. Google will put these findings into action by actively targeting the worst offenders.
Instead of holding the ad-creators accountable, Google will be taking it up with the websites hosting the ads.
“Although a few of the ad experiences that violate the Better Ads Standards are problems in the advertisement itself,” the company stated in a blog post. “The majority of problematic ad experiences are controlled by the site owner — such as high ad density or [full-page] ads with countdown.”
Today, the Better Ads Standards consists of 12 ad experiences that research found to be particularly annoying to users.
How Will It Work?
In order to do this, Google will scan through a sample of pages from a site. Then the company ranks the site as “Passing, Warning, or Failing,” depending on how well it complies with the ad guidelines.
Site owners will be able to see a detailed summary of this report using the Ad Experience Report API and can request to be re-reviewed. This will give spammy sites the change to redeem themselves.
Google will warn websites to remove offending ads and outright block them if the site does not act on the warning. This will hopefully incentivize sites to provide advertisements that complement their contented instead of simply packing a page full of pop-ups.
What Will This Look Like?
While a lot of work went into this behind the scenes, Chrome users will simply get a notification from Chrome if they visit a “Failing” website.
The Chrome mobile app will notify users that ads on the site are actively being blocked with a message at the bottom of the site. Web-surfers using Chrome’s desktop version will see a notification appear near the address bar at the top of the browser, much like other ad-blocking software.
Chrome will automatically block intrusive ads on sites that have been found to violate the Better Ads Standards, but users have the option to disable the feature by selecting “allow ads on this site.”
Google even provides an option to disable the blocking, if you are one of the few who actually enjoys flashing advertisements or want to support a specific website.
Google Chrome is the world’s leading web browser, so this move should light a fire under websites that want to keep a steady flow of ad revenue. If all goes according to plan, this move could actually make for some bearable online advertisements.
At last, we don’t have to be scared of a video playing at max volume every time we enter a site.
