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We plan to have Chrome hide ads that do not comply with the Better Ads Standards
- patrickg_zill 9y agoAm I so very cynical, that I assume that Google Ads will be assumed by default to comply with these standards? And that therefore, those using Google Ads to advertise will have their ads shown 100% of the time, while the exact same ad served on the same page, but via a different ad network, might not be shown?
- Arnavion 9y agoFTA (emphasis mine): >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.
- hayksaakian 9y agoThey key here is not 'which ads' get shown, but rather which websites will be allowed to show any ads at all.
- just2n 9y agoIf this follows the trend of what happened to YouTube advertising (TV 2.0) in that certain websites will be targeted for demonetization without any transparency or consistency, this will open a giant hole for competitors to eat one of Alphabet's core businesses. Perhaps leveraging this use of control over Chrome to effectively cripple competing ad networks with perfectly reasonable ads on websites that don't want to provide profit to Google will open them to litigation as well. This will be interesting.
- hayksaakian 9y agoGoogle's Display network is only a small fraction of their advertising revenue. Search advertising revenue is #1 by far. Google can make a lot of mistakes in every other vertical. As long as they don't screw up search they can fail as much as they want.
- tonyarkles 9y agoI hope this applies to YouTube!
- DanBC 9y agoThey would be fucking stupid to do so; they're already under pressure in Europe for manipulating search results to favour Google products.
- rangersanger 9y agoDoes this begin to count as anticompetitive behavior in the form of Tying? especially if you're correct and Google Ads are by default complaint. If google were to, say, change what compliance means regularly enough (which would be a pretty low bar,) ad buyers have no choice but to rely on Google Ads.
- chc 9y agoWhy would you make this assumption instead of just read the Better Ad Standards page to see what it's about?
- aus8aeouns 9y agoBecause of experience with large companies. Why would you think they wouldn't do this when this sort of "self policing" has pretty much always ended the way the OP suggests?
- bobajeff 9y agoI can't wait to see what Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla's response is going to be.
- jpmattia 9y agoPresumably: Blocking ads that are deceptively listed as being part of search results.
- ams6110 9y agoSorry Google, I'm going to block them all anyway. And if your browser won't let me, I'll use one that will.
- clock_tower 9y agoFirefox/SeaMonkey, NoScript, uBlock Origin. It's pretty cozy over here.
- j_s 9y agoCurious to see mention of SeaMonkey! Do you have personal experience with it, and if so how does it stack up? Was checking to see how often it appears on HN and it seems to have shown up a handful of times with the recent discussions of the browser wars, along with another Firefox-derivative/alternative I've never heard of before: PaleMoon.
- clock_tower 9y agoSeaMonkey's pretty good -- it's Firefox oriented towards developers. I almost feel like it's a bit faster than Firefox proper, even though I'd expect it to be slower from extra developer tools; regardless, it can run all the same plugins, and it's a good choice of browser for software-related jobs.
- djsumdog 9y agoublock origin works on vivaldi too.
- git_rancher 9y agoThis is just industry self regulation in the face of otherwise impending "doom" from the ad blocking trend.
- tabeth 9y agoI'd rather someone implement a tipping API where I can allocate money per website per minute (or hour spent). When the money runs out, depending on the configuration, the website can choose to serve me the page or ask me to reload (on money for the website) They get small amounts of micro transactions (I'm talking less than a cent) and I change my behavior to stop going to useless sites. everyone wins! personally, I believe ads are a disease. if your website isn't worth paying a penny to go to for an hour, then just shut down. a penny an hour could be very sustainable for plenty of sites. take some random forum: 15,000 thousand users per month, let's say the average user goes on for an hour a day, or 30 hours a month. 450,000 cents is about 5 thousand a month. not too shabby. if your website is that awesome up the price to 10 cents and increase your money an order of magnitude. the problem is the culture of "free", unfortunately.
- ShannonAlther 9y agoThe internet wasn't designed with a mechanism to force clients to pay hosts for server time, unfortunately.
- igobyterry 9y agoNew browser Brave does something similar. https://brave.com/publishers.html https://brave.com/publishers.html
- bastawhiz 9y agoIsn't this essentially the concept behind Brave?
- yohui 9y agoSomething like Google Contributor, which was just relaunched today? https://contributor.google.com https://contributor.google.com Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14467702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14467702
- Sephr 9y agoThat is "pay to block ads" and doesn't cover the OP's use case of "pay to use this site" (afaik, I could be wrong). That use case is important for sites that don't want to use ads in the first place.
- ilovetux 9y agoThis is sad. When you follow the link they provide for the Better Ads Standard there is a link to the coalition's privacy policy at the bottom of the page which says clear as day that third parties such as social networks are monitoring your use of the site to facilitate "interest based advertising". That says it all, they want ads to be more palatable so them and their accomplices can track your every digital move. This will make Creepy Google tons of money by selling out their most precious resource while they continue to build skynet. Whatever happened to "Don't be evil"?
- na85 9y agoIt's hard to compete with evil companies like Facebook if you're not evil yourself.
- dredmorbius 9y agoIt's a competitive market.
- jacquesm 9y agoHow did that work out for Google? I don't see G+ winning over Facebook any time soon.
- ilovetux 9y agoNeither is in the social networking business, make no mistake, they are advertising companies. Ever seen Mad Men?
- clock_tower 9y ago"Don't Be Evil" was basic PR: figure out what you're most hated for, and loudly, repeatedly insist that you're the opposite of it. Delta promises comfort and ease in coach, which should only remind you of how hellish that experience can be; Google bragging that they weren't evil should've been an instant red flag.
- deleted 9y ago
- ProfessorLayton 9y agoThis sounds great on the surface, but when one of the biggest tech companies in the world becomes the arbiter of the internet, we all lose.
- tmh79 9y agoIMO, this is begging for an anti-trust lawsuit. Google, the largest advertiser on the web, building web browsers that block other networks ads. I believe they're going through with it now partially because they don't expect an active anti-trust presence from the trump admin.
- tyingq 9y agoThe EU doesn't seem shy in that area.
- swyman 9y agoThe post says they'd block ads from their own network that violate the standard as well
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoVery simply, Google can ensure its own network never violates it's own rules. But other ad companies don't get to set those rules.
- kbenson 9y ago> But other ad companies don't get to set those rules. Strictly, neither does Google, as long as they are following the industry group's standard. Sure, Google is a member of that group and may be able to influence the standard, but so are a lot of other companies, from Facebook to the Washington Post. I doubt any one company can run away with the standard without the others having a say, or at least making a big stink.
- anonemouse145 9y agoThis is dumb. Even if I admit a lot of these ads annoy me. Back in the day Google would just lower the ranking of sites with banner ads. That sort of makes sense. They're a worse result, so show them lower. Fine. We should still decide this with traffic, but hey we can debate that. To give Google/Chrome broad authorization to block people from seeing content that Google doesn't like scares the hell out of me, even if it's under a thoughtful banner. Random made up example- what if next time Google picks a consumer advocacy group that says PayPal is a bad service, and blocks ads on sites that use PayPal? (Google offers Wallet) I would grant them blocking ads that activate Android vibration- I consider that borderline malware. I grant pop-up ads, opening a new tab I didn't ask for is also arguably malware. I do not grant them blocking a wide variety of types of content just because marketers are abusing it. That's bad precedent. Rank them down, warn the user, heck put a "click to play Flash" lock on it. But don't take control away. Google also hints at services that would let a website lock down when it detects ad blocking and force people to pay or otherwise engage to get access to the site. I think that's already one trojan horse. Google can stop you from trying to generate revenue off users, oh by the way we sell a new system where you can pay to get that back. I don't like anything about this, even though I agree that screw those ads.
- tuna-piano 9y agoA few years ago, Chrome decided not to add a "mute tab" option, explaining, "After much debate, we decided not to proceed with a tab mute control, as this crosses a very important line: If we provide Chrome controls for content, we’re implying that Chrome should take on a responsibility to police content."[1] It appears their opinion has changed. Of course, it's likely due to financial reasons[2]. That said, Chrome has blocked pop-ups forever... and I think I agree with this decision, as it will help both Google and content owners. I don't think most people won't install ad blockers if ads aren't obnoxious. [1]https://thenextweb.com/google/2014/02/11/google-explains-wont-add-mute-tab-option-chrome-considers-tab-audio-api-extensions/ https://thenextweb.com/google/2014/02/11/google-explains-won... [2]http://www.businessinsider.com/pagefair-2017-ad-blocking-report-2017-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/pagefair-2017-ad-blocking-rep...
- yohui 9y agoMute tab seems to be enabled by default now, so they must have changed their minds a while ago. EDIT: Found an article: https://venturebeat.com/2015/10/20/you-can-now-mute-tabs-in-chrome/ https://venturebeat.com/2015/10/20/you-can-now-mute-tabs-in-...
- MaulingMonkey 9y agoAs far back as Sept. 2014 chrome://flags/#enable-tab-audio-muting was available in dev builds. I think I've probably had it enabled for about as long.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- yohui 9y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14463732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14463732
- ilovetux 9y agoDespite the overwhelming negative reaction in that discussion thread, Google decided to go ahead with it. What does that really say about Google and friends?
- 659087 9y agoI think they figure that those who fell for "don't be evil" outnumber those of us who saw through it from the start.
- Safety1stClyde 9y ago> Despite the overwhelming negative reaction in that discussion thread, Google decided to go ahead with it. What does that really say about Google and friends? It says "Google is a very large corporation employing tens of thousands of people which does not make decisions based on discussions by a few individuals posting anonymously on a web forum".
- quotemstr 9y agoIt's almost as if Hacker News is some kind of unusual bubble that doesn't reflect the opinions and viewpoints of the general public.
- ilovetux 9y agoGood point, I do fall for the reinforcing echos of like-minded people. It's good to be reminded once in a while, but I do still find Google's, Facebook's and more recently Microsoft's business model really creepy.
- koolba 9y agoSo Google picks what ads you see on non-Google sites? Zero conflict of interest there...
- deprave 9y agoMark my words: This will be the basis for legitimizing out-of-band popups from publishers on Chrome asking you to disable your non-Chrome ad blocker.
- wmf 9y agoWay ahead of you: "With Funding Choices, now in beta, publishers can show a customized message to visitors using an ad blocker, inviting them to either enable ads on their site, or pay for a pass that removes all ads on that site through the new Google Contributor."
- Veratyr 9y agoI really don't see this going down well. The ad networks that aren't Google aren't going to be happy. They may admit that this could reduce the use of full ad blockers but they're going to loathe that they had no say. Plus, these experiences were shitty for the user but they must have worked. From a publisher point of view, on the one hand, this is likely to bring reduced revenue from the folks who don't use ad blockers, that will be bad for the publishers. On the other hand, there's the hope that users will stop installing ad blockers and revenue should finally stabilise somewhat. Like the ad networks, I think many publishers will be upset about not having a choice. And finally, from a user perspective, this doesn't go far enough. Many users will install ad blockers to get rid of the ads on YouTube alone and there are a ton of other unacceptable ad formats that the "Better Ads Standards" don't cover (like animated ads, small sticky ads, ads that look like download buttons). It seems to me like Google's desperately trying to plug the leak on a sinking boat with a straw. It might mitigate things for a while but it won't do anything to solve the actual problem.
- ncallaway 9y ago> but they're going to loathe that they had no say. They had a say. They could have responded to the race to the bottom state of ad display tech. They could have recognized that they were in a tragedy of the commons and formed a coalition for better ads. They didn't. They continued the race to the bottom. Each day they continued to push awful ads that harmed the user they were voicing their opinion. I agree with the rest of your comments, though...
- zyxzkz 9y agoI guess we'll find out if Internet content disappears because of a lack of "Gotcha!" advertising. My guess is that the Internet will be just fine.
- duncan_bayne 9y agoEspecially the non Web bits.
- deleted 9y ago
- hamstercat 9y agoThe biggest ad company in the world gets to decide what is and isn't acceptable for an ad and actively censor it in the most popular browser in the world? It's funny how some things turn out in the long run. I don't see the situation getting better anytime soon. At this point, Chrome is the new IE6: whatever they choose becomes standard because of their huge market share. Ho well, at least it doesn't break all of my sites.
- koolba 9y agoAt least there's new versions of Chrome and it has automatic updates. The real bear with IE6 wasn't the state of the tech when it was released, it was that enterprises were stuck with it for ages.
- aanm1988 9y agoand they got there by cramming it in everyones faces with their search monopoly. Totally different than bundling it with the OS. Except wait, they do that too.
- hyperbovine 9y agoNot IE: not bundled, not integrated, easily uninstalled. If people don't like this move, there are a myriad of other browsers available for them to choose from.
- mstade 9y agoA myriad? Really?
- SturgeonsLaw 9y agoYeah, all the Webkit reskins you could ever want!
- sbierwagen 9y agoWhat is Android or Chrome OS?
- joosters 9y agoMy parents don't realise that when they click on the top link of a google search result, they are clicking on an ad. I'd guess that many many other people don't realise this either. That would seem to categorise these adverts as deceptive, right? So, when will Google be blocking these adverts?
- watertorock 9y agoI have seen many people - young and old - do the exact same thing, not knowing they are ads.
- GhotiFish 9y agoa co-worker did this, it took him to a screen that was designed to imitate the windows blue screen of death. I assume it was also attempting to deliver some kind of payload as well, because the browser crashed on that page. There is no way an advertising standard in which google was a part of laying the ground rules could be considered a "Better Ad".
- mempko 9y agoFalse, there is no such thing as better ADs.
- RUG3Y 9y agoEh, I'm using adblockers forever. There is zero content that I absolutely can't live without. I miss the "old" days when folks were publishing sites for the love of what they were doing.
- Method-X 9y agoPeople still publish sites for the love of it. That never changed. Not every site has ads.
- Lunatic666 9y agoI'm only using a blocker, because I don't want to be tracked and sucked dry of any data. I wouldn't mind some ads on the pages I visit.
- pmiller2 9y agoI don't think you can have ads without tracking these days.
- aanm1988 9y agoWhat's the response when a competitor (rightfully IMO) claims this is a blatant abuse of googles position as the leading browser provider?
- danaliv 9y agoNone of this solves the fundamental problem with ad-centered revenue models, which is that advertising has driven down the quality of content by forcing sites to optimize for cheap clicks. Even if you're blocking ads, you're still being affected by them, because they're driving the strategies of the sites you visit and defining the metrics by which they judge their own success. Don't get me wrong; this is an improvement, and a welcome one in my opinion. Pre-stitials in particular were never anything more than a slimy way to get around pop-up blockers. But ultimately the internet needs a new way to make money. I don't claim to know what that is, unfortunately, but I think the problem is clear.
- smichel17 9y ago> ultimately the internet needs a new way to make money This would be the point where I advocate for snowdrift.coop, if I were not exhausted and on mobile. wiki.snowdrift.coop has more info than the main site right now.
- Mz 9y agoTip jars. Support the content you value without having to deal with ads. http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/search?q=Tip+jar http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/search?q=Tip+jar
- kbenson 9y agoCompromise: an agreement or a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions. If any one side were perfectly happy with this solution, it would probably mean it's not a very good solution. Of course the ad networks don't want to have to follow any standards. Of course the content producers that are making good money with ads that may fall foul of this don't want anything to change that might reduce their revenue. Of course users would rather get rid of all ads. None of that is realistic or sustainable. If advertising doesn't get its act together, ad blocking will increase even more over the large year-over-year increases it's already seeing[1], and at some point content producers will find they aren't making enough money anymore to sustain that advertising model because nobody is seeing their ads, and it will all come crashing down. Would another model rise up in its place? Sure. Would that be any comfort to the people that ended up having to get a different job because what they were doing was no longer sustainable and no new model can take over instantaneously? Doubtful. Whatever you want the eventual model to be, the only way forward that doesn't strangle the market while it's happening includes everyone involved taking responsibility for their part. And this definitely includes the consumers. Your "I can do whatever I want to bits delivered to me / I have no responsibility to watch the advertising expected to fund the content I'm consuming" arguments never really held up anyway, and they definitely don't if the other side gets its act together. Privacy concerns are still valid, but ad blockers never actually fixed that, they just added an extra level of complexity to the equation. Use facebook? Guess what facebook probably knows about every site you've visited that has a like button while your facebook session is still active. Your only hope is legislation, and you'll be lucky not to get a raw deal out of that, and your only hope of a good outcome there is awareness and activism. Acting like your ad-blocker actually helps all that much is just sticking your head in the sand when that's the next real fight for online rights. 1: http://www.businessinsider.com/pagefair-2017-ad-blocking-report-2017-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/pagefair-2017-ad-blocking-rep...
- fapjacks 9y agoWhat they mean here is actually "We plan to have Chrome hide ads that do not comply with Google's standards" and I challenge anyone to show that this isn't Google trying to silo advertising even more than they already do.
- tux1968 9y agoThis really gives legitimacy to all ad-blockers; although I guess that ship has mostly sailed anyway. Still, you can't say it's inherently wrong if you implement some version of it yourself.
- troydavis 9y agoIt's buried a bit, but the most noticeable change is arguably that Google is productizing blocking ad blockers. From the release: "As part of our efforts to maintain a sustainable web for everyone, we want to help publishers with good ad experiences get paid for their work. With Funding Choices, now in beta, publishers can show a customized message to visitors using an ad blocker, inviting them to either enable ads on their site, or pay for a pass that removes all ads on that site through the new Google Contributor."
- ipsum2 9y ago> But the reality is, it’s far too common that people encounter annoying, intrusive ads on the web--like the kind that blare music unexpectedly, or force you to wait 10 seconds before you can see the content on the page. I can't help but point out the irony that sound-playing, (mostly) unskippable ads precisely describes Youtube, before you can see the (video) content.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoThe sound of a YouTube ad doesn't come from an unexpected place.
- kjsingh 9y agoThis smells like bad monopolistic and anti-competitive initiative!
- redm 9y ago"The new Ad Experience Report helps publishers understand how the Better Ads Standards apply to their own websites." Only Google could put something that forces all websites to A) use this tool and B) comply with this tool, or else, as a "helpful tool for publishers". When you have a 70%+ market share (Chrome Desktop and Android browsers) you leave websites with ads no choice but to do what you want, how you want, and hope for the best. If you've looked at the tool, you realize it's going to work just like Mobility reporting and Safe Browsing. Google will tell you there's a problem and take action. In this case, the action is to cut your revenue. I'm sure there will be a hotline to call if it makes a mistake though.... (that's a joke) Shame on you Google.
- lovich 9y agoHow does this not get government intervention when Microsoft got it for bundling IE as the only broswer for Windows? This is like being the company in charge of fuel efficiency for car manufacturers while also owning 50% in aramco.
- sawmurai 9y agoNice ... will still keep an independent adblocker :)
- pdimitar 9y agoThis is an attempt by Google to funnel more ad revenue and try and kick out competitors in one stroke. It will only work partially. As other commenters have said -- this doesn't go far enough though, which is understandable, they won't pull the rug under their own feet. And no, users won't start uninstalling adblockers with happy smiles. I guess for the huge scale Google operates in there will be slightly increased revenue for a while though.
- nebabyte 9y agoMeh, I'd rather arbitrate my own filters, thanks. Will continue not using Chrome :)