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"In one possible application Google is considering, it may choose to block all advertising that appears on sites with offending ads, instead of the individual o

"In one possible application Google is considering, it may choose to block all advertising that appears on sites with offending ads, instead of the individual offending ads themselves. In other words, site owners may be required to ensure all of their ads meet the standards, or could see all advertising across their sites blocked in Chrome." I like this approach. It punishes site owners for running malicious or badly-behaved ads. I think this is a step forward. I hate blocking ads across the board - I just want to stop the intrusive and dangerous variety. I can tolerate the rest.

ben_jones 9y ago
Wait doesn't google adsense occasionally server malicious ads? Especially if we extend the definition of 'malicious' to mean misleading spyware?
- OJFord 9y ago
  Yes, but doesn't the 'occasionally' arise because Google does not want them, tries to avoid them, and removes them if it agrees with user reports?
Klathmon 9y ago
I like this approach as well. But sadly it will be fought by many who believe all ads to be "offending", and will declare Google as even more "evil" because of it. But I think this is a great step to stop the "race to the bottom". Right now there is no incentive for an ad network to make "well behaved" ads. Most of the "ad blocking crowd" will block them regardless of how nice they are, and advertisers will pay less for them, and site owners don't care because the money gets better the scummier the ads are. By auto-blocking sites with the worst offenders at the browser level they can start to push all sides toward wanting "better" ads. It gives networks, advertisers, and site owners all incentive to make sure their ads are unobtrusive and safe.
- aanm1988 9y ago
  Or it will be seen as another power grab by google. I'm not saying it's a move that hurts consumers, I'm saying I see it as a power grab and yet more control over the web being handed over. I'm unconvinced that relying on a coalition to set standards is enough of a gap.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    That's a fair thing to be worried about, and I think if this were to move forward I'd really like to see at least one other browser implement it to the same standard, or perhaps some agreement on what constitutes "bad" ads from a few other networks. But I don't think that's a good reason to fight it from the start.
oDot 9y ago
I like it too, but isn't Google in a conflict of interest here?
- libria 9y ago
  The opposite, I would say. Google has strict guidelines for ad creative content and polices its ads as well; they're almost certainly above their own bar. So this is essentially threatening to block everyone else, or at least those behaving poorly.
  - JohnTHaller 9y ago
    Fairly well. As someone who uses AdSense and has had site users report bestiality ads, you can't automate quality ad content.
  - aethr 9y ago
    That is the conflict of interest. It's hard to see how this isn't going to strengthen their position in the ad serving market. Google being able to define where the bar for "badly behaving" is set means that only their competitors will be hurt by this.
    - bpicolo 9y ago
      I wonder if the motivation isn't a bit more subtle than that. My guess would be they're hoping to improve ads across the web so that people turn off ad blockers in general.
      - xienze 9y ago
        And if they can gimp their competitors at the same time, bonus!
      - ohyeshedid 9y ago
        Perhaps it is, but if there were the case why wouldn't they start by cleaning up their own platforms? There are several angles to be wary of. Locking out competitors, replacing competitor ads with their own, forcing sites to migrate to, or back to, Google ad networks, etc.
nugget 9y ago
> It punishes site owners for running malicious or badly-behaved ads. There's no way that Google can effectively be police, judge, jury, and executioner all at the same time, given their own massive conflicts of interest.
- derefr 9y ago
  They already serve in those same roles, though, when "SEO spam" sites get blocked from Google Search results.
slg 9y ago
>I just want to stop the intrusive and dangerous variety One of the problem is the definition of "intrusive and dangerous" varies wildly from person to person. Ad blockers have generally handled this by blocking everything while giving the ability to whitelist exceptions. I imagine it would be much more difficult to get good user satisfaction by attacking this from the opposite approach.
- kristianc 9y ago
  > I imagine it would be much more difficult to get good user satisfaction by attacking this from the opposite approach. Except if you're Google and have near-infinite ML resources at your disposal and 50% of the browser market. An algo could be trained by a thumbs up / thumbs down to spot good and bad ads / vendors within six months.
  - slg 9y ago
    This is not a problem you can just throw resources at to solve. The problem is that some people will only categorized ads as "intrusive" if they play sound or take over control of the whole page. Others will categorize every ad as intrusive. Some people will categorize only ads that inject malware as "dangerous". Other will categorize all ads that have any form of tracking as "dangerous". The most straightforward way to serve both of these audiences is to block all ads. Few people are really going to complain that they see too few ads. Google is unlikely to do that for obvious reasons. So how do you satisfy people all both extremes of those definitions?
97s 9y ago
Exactly. I don't mind ads that are just ads. They have taken them way too far. Requiring clicks, music, or popups. BLEH.
stronglikedan 9y ago
What do you consider to be a "dangerous" ad? (serious question)
- aorth 9y ago
  There are ads that serve malware, for example. It has happened on reputable websites, like Forbes and New York Times. https://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-readers-to-turn-off-ad-blockers-promptly-serves-malware https://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-re...
FatAmericanDev 9y ago
Now google is going to control what documents i am able to load? Why would you like that?
whyleyc 9y ago
It may be laudable to try and lead an "industry-wide" effort to clean up ads but it stinks of hypocrisy when Google repeatedly allows all shades of garbage to permeate its' own Adsense network. We talked about this only a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14094083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14094083
- nojvek 9y ago
  I hope this comes as an extension that can be turned off. E.g having flash pre-installed in chrome but having ability to turn it off. I expect reasonable defaults but some knobs to control the ads I want. If chrome team who thinks about the world and ads team who thinks about $$$ are total separate entities who don't influence each other for special interests then I applaud the effort. I hope this is done in the open in chromium source code. Basically the current way extensions work is by injecting massive amounts of CSS and js in the page. This makes a lot of optimizations in chrome useless for fast page renders. Doing an optimized ad block engine would make chrome feel faster
  - freehunter 9y ago
    Chrome doesn't even allow you to control if a single click in the URL bar highlights the entire URL or just drops a cursor even though the behavior in the same application is inconsistent between different platforms. I have my doubts they'd allow you to fiddle with knobs about advertising preferences.
- amygdyl 9y ago
  I work tangentially to adtech, started with publishing when a xacto knife and bromides might be a handy skill still... I still cannot wrap my head around publishers apparently disinterested in manually clearing ad copy for press approval. Can anyone delineate a non obvious history to this complete laissez faire?
  - greggman 9y ago
    the ny times maybe has the staff to do that (or used to). Joe's blog does not. back in print media each ad had to be placed by hand. it also had the aquired though manual labor. those things seriously limited the number of people publishing since the majority of your time was spent not making content for your zine but instead chasing down ads. the internet changed that. here's a spot on my page . fill it with ads please. make those ads geographically specific and or user specific . write me a check for $$$. it seems pretty obvious that history. if I decided the put ads on my sites I certainly would not have the time to find relevant ads for the world or even just my country. that's not something I want to deal with. that said, if there was a good ad company that currated their ads well, did not share info with 3rd parties and track users I'd certainly consider signing up to that over others
taylorbuley 9y ago
Regarding Google setting policy, it reminds me of a story about a floating advertisement of ours that accompanied the customer as they scrolled down the page reading an article. An AdSense robot flagged us two times for violating policies regarding "calling attention" to advertising because of this "sticky" ad unit. I appealed, didn't work, and had to roll back AdSense lest our company get banned. In a later conversation, a Google rep reached out to wonder why we weren't showing Google ads. I explained the policy violations and that we were more interested in our floating ad unit then AdSense. A few emails later and poof! I was assured there would be no more policy violations issued over this ad unit, and we were able to roll back onto AdSense inventory. Would Google partners get blocked at the same rates as non-Google partners? Perhaps not. With such seemingly capricious decisions by Google, and so little customer service resources outside of robot policy automation and appeals, I worry about the company playing this role.
- nso 9y ago
  This is a pretty well known fact. The rules are there for all sites except those that make Google a lot of money. The tipping point coincides with the time when Google sees it fitting to assign your site a rep. The "3 ads max" rule goes out the window as well. I don't have a problem with this approach. I see it as a given that they would strike different deals with the breadwinners. I used to have a rep as well, and he also made some problems I had magically disappear.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
enknamel 9y ago
Will this become a moving target? As ads become progressively "better" will the standards move up in terms of what is considered objectionable? Also this could be a huge antitrust issue. Google could start blacklisting sites or ad networks based off of their arbitrary standards and force publishers into using Google products with the guarantee they will never be blocked.
kesor 9y ago
The biggest ad company blocking all of its competitors for 50% of internet users, and you like this?
akerro 9y ago
>I like this approach. It punishes site owners for running malicious or badly-behaved ads. Someone forgets that for a few days YouTube was serving malware in their ads.

ben_jones 9y ago

Wait doesn't google adsense occasionally server malicious ads? Especially if we extend the definition of 'malicious' to mean misleading spyware?

OJFord 9y ago
Yes, but doesn't the 'occasionally' arise because Google does not want them, tries to avoid them, and removes them if it agrees with user reports?

Klathmon 9y ago

I like this approach as well. But sadly it will be fought by many who believe all ads to be "offending", and will declare Google as even more "evil" because of it. But I think this is a great step to stop the "race to the bottom". Right now there is no incentive for an ad network to make "well behaved" ads. Most of the "ad blocking crowd" will block them regardless of how nice they are, and advertisers will pay less for them, and site owners don't care because the money gets better the scummier the ads are. By auto-blocking sites with the worst offenders at the browser level they can start to push all sides toward wanting "better" ads. It gives networks, advertisers, and site owners all incentive to make sure their ads are unobtrusive and safe.

aanm1988 9y ago
Or it will be seen as another power grab by google. I'm not saying it's a move that hurts consumers, I'm saying I see it as a power grab and yet more control over the web being handed over. I'm unconvinced that relying on a coalition to set standards is enough of a gap.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  That's a fair thing to be worried about, and I think if this were to move forward I'd really like to see at least one other browser implement it to the same standard, or perhaps some agreement on what constitutes "bad" ads from a few other networks. But I don't think that's a good reason to fight it from the start.

oDot 9y ago

I like it too, but isn't Google in a conflict of interest here?

libria 9y ago
The opposite, I would say. Google has strict guidelines for ad creative content and polices its ads as well; they're almost certainly above their own bar. So this is essentially threatening to block everyone else, or at least those behaving poorly.
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  Fairly well. As someone who uses AdSense and has had site users report bestiality ads, you can't automate quality ad content.
- aethr 9y ago
  That is the conflict of interest. It's hard to see how this isn't going to strengthen their position in the ad serving market. Google being able to define where the bar for "badly behaving" is set means that only their competitors will be hurt by this.
  - bpicolo 9y ago
    I wonder if the motivation isn't a bit more subtle than that. My guess would be they're hoping to improve ads across the web so that people turn off ad blockers in general.
    - xienze 9y ago
      And if they can gimp their competitors at the same time, bonus!
    - ohyeshedid 9y ago
      Perhaps it is, but if there were the case why wouldn't they start by cleaning up their own platforms? There are several angles to be wary of. Locking out competitors, replacing competitor ads with their own, forcing sites to migrate to, or back to, Google ad networks, etc.

nugget 9y ago

> It punishes site owners for running malicious or badly-behaved ads. There's no way that Google can effectively be police, judge, jury, and executioner all at the same time, given their own massive conflicts of interest.

derefr 9y ago
They already serve in those same roles, though, when "SEO spam" sites get blocked from Google Search results.

slg 9y ago

>I just want to stop the intrusive and dangerous variety One of the problem is the definition of "intrusive and dangerous" varies wildly from person to person. Ad blockers have generally handled this by blocking everything while giving the ability to whitelist exceptions. I imagine it would be much more difficult to get good user satisfaction by attacking this from the opposite approach.

kristianc 9y ago
> I imagine it would be much more difficult to get good user satisfaction by attacking this from the opposite approach. Except if you're Google and have near-infinite ML resources at your disposal and 50% of the browser market. An algo could be trained by a thumbs up / thumbs down to spot good and bad ads / vendors within six months.
- slg 9y ago
  This is not a problem you can just throw resources at to solve. The problem is that some people will only categorized ads as "intrusive" if they play sound or take over control of the whole page. Others will categorize every ad as intrusive. Some people will categorize only ads that inject malware as "dangerous". Other will categorize all ads that have any form of tracking as "dangerous". The most straightforward way to serve both of these audiences is to block all ads. Few people are really going to complain that they see too few ads. Google is unlikely to do that for obvious reasons. So how do you satisfy people all both extremes of those definitions?

97s 9y ago

Exactly. I don't mind ads that are just ads. They have taken them way too far. Requiring clicks, music, or popups. BLEH.

stronglikedan 9y ago

What do you consider to be a "dangerous" ad? (serious question)

aorth 9y ago
There are ads that serve malware, for example. It has happened on reputable websites, like Forbes and New York Times. https://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-readers-to-turn-off-ad-blockers-promptly-serves-malware https://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-re...

FatAmericanDev 9y ago

Now google is going to control what documents i am able to load? Why would you like that?

whyleyc 9y ago

It may be laudable to try and lead an "industry-wide" effort to clean up ads but it stinks of hypocrisy when Google repeatedly allows all shades of garbage to permeate its' own Adsense network. We talked about this only a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14094083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14094083

nojvek 9y ago
I hope this comes as an extension that can be turned off. E.g having flash pre-installed in chrome but having ability to turn it off. I expect reasonable defaults but some knobs to control the ads I want. If chrome team who thinks about the world and ads team who thinks about $$$ are total separate entities who don't influence each other for special interests then I applaud the effort. I hope this is done in the open in chromium source code. Basically the current way extensions work is by injecting massive amounts of CSS and js in the page. This makes a lot of optimizations in chrome useless for fast page renders. Doing an optimized ad block engine would make chrome feel faster
- freehunter 9y ago
  Chrome doesn't even allow you to control if a single click in the URL bar highlights the entire URL or just drops a cursor even though the behavior in the same application is inconsistent between different platforms. I have my doubts they'd allow you to fiddle with knobs about advertising preferences.
amygdyl 9y ago
I work tangentially to adtech, started with publishing when a xacto knife and bromides might be a handy skill still... I still cannot wrap my head around publishers apparently disinterested in manually clearing ad copy for press approval. Can anyone delineate a non obvious history to this complete laissez faire?
- greggman 9y ago
  the ny times maybe has the staff to do that (or used to). Joe's blog does not. back in print media each ad had to be placed by hand. it also had the aquired though manual labor. those things seriously limited the number of people publishing since the majority of your time was spent not making content for your zine but instead chasing down ads. the internet changed that. here's a spot on my page . fill it with ads please. make those ads geographically specific and or user specific . write me a check for $$$. it seems pretty obvious that history. if I decided the put ads on my sites I certainly would not have the time to find relevant ads for the world or even just my country. that's not something I want to deal with. that said, if there was a good ad company that currated their ads well, did not share info with 3rd parties and track users I'd certainly consider signing up to that over others

taylorbuley 9y ago

Regarding Google setting policy, it reminds me of a story about a floating advertisement of ours that accompanied the customer as they scrolled down the page reading an article. An AdSense robot flagged us two times for violating policies regarding "calling attention" to advertising because of this "sticky" ad unit. I appealed, didn't work, and had to roll back AdSense lest our company get banned. In a later conversation, a Google rep reached out to wonder why we weren't showing Google ads. I explained the policy violations and that we were more interested in our floating ad unit then AdSense. A few emails later and poof! I was assured there would be no more policy violations issued over this ad unit, and we were able to roll back onto AdSense inventory. Would Google partners get blocked at the same rates as non-Google partners? Perhaps not. With such seemingly capricious decisions by Google, and so little customer service resources outside of robot policy automation and appeals, I worry about the company playing this role.

nso 9y ago
This is a pretty well known fact. The rules are there for all sites except those that make Google a lot of money. The tipping point coincides with the time when Google sees it fitting to assign your site a rep. The "3 ads max" rule goes out the window as well. I don't have a problem with this approach. I see it as a given that they would strike different deals with the breadwinners. I used to have a rep as well, and he also made some problems I had magically disappear.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

enknamel 9y ago

Will this become a moving target? As ads become progressively "better" will the standards move up in terms of what is considered objectionable? Also this could be a huge antitrust issue. Google could start blacklisting sites or ad networks based off of their arbitrary standards and force publishers into using Google products with the guarantee they will never be blocked.

kesor 9y ago

The biggest ad company blocking all of its competitors for 50% of internet users, and you like this?

akerro 9y ago

>I like this approach. It punishes site owners for running malicious or badly-behaved ads. Someone forgets that for a few days YouTube was serving malware in their ads.