Chrome AdBlocking Confusion

There is a lot of confusion and fear at the moment about Google’s latest steps into adblocking that recently launched. Specifically, the native built-in ad blocker in Google Chrome. It (among other things) has led to rumblings in both the European Union (EU) and the United States of breaking-up Google, as well as the suggestion of an impending anti-trust fight. European Commissioners for Competition Margrethe Vestager says she’ll monitor Google’s ad-blocking efforts.  So clearly, it is not just Publishers and Advertisers who are concerned. The EU may object to Google bundling their ad blocker into Chrome, for anti-competitive reasons, so the whole project may change as a result. After all, it was things like the inclusion of pre-installed software with Windows that landed Microsoft in anti-trust court years ago that (arguably) lead to the rise of Apple. Google may want to avoid the same fate.

The Chrome announcement included several key points that may help clarify the situation:

• Chrome plans to increase the blocking of ads on websites that display a large number of bad quality ads.

Chrome has already been giving notice before blocking advertising for Publishers running PopUp ads. Chrome blocking will affect publishers who choose advertising networks with low-quality standards or networks that allow Publishers to “opt-in” for Google non-compliant ads. Any moment, Chrome could turn off those ads.

Thankfully, our network, JuicyAds, has taken a hard-line on these types of ads and we don’t allow them. Instead, we have pushed advertisers to provide us with only compliant ads that are also of quality. Compliance required the re-review of every single image in our network. It was much work, but we did it so that our Publishers don’t have to worry. We went even further and allowed Publishers to block any campaign from their websites with just a copy-and-paste of the ad link.

While this may sound like a good thing on the surface, the guidelines for “compliant” ads remain in the power of someone else. Even though we firmly believe that Publishers should be in charge of running their websites and choosing the type of ads and acceptable ad types, this is a crucial component to staying complaint. Since we expect the guidelines may change over time, if you ever receive alerts from the Ad Experience Report (AER), you should take action immediately to notify your chosen ad network to inform them of the specific issue.

Additionally, the Ad Experience Report API was provided by Google to let developers build applications that query Google AER. The API gets a list of sites that have ad experiences that might violate the Better Ads Standards, or that have egregious ad experiences. The response also contains a link to the full AER for publishers to get more details.

The research involved more than 25,000 consumers who identified the ad experiences that ranked lowest across a range of user experience factors, which correlated with consumers adopting ad blockers. So, Publishers choosing a compliant network may reduce the number of visitors who wish to block their ads. These research results are what defined the initial Better Ads Standards. Four types of desktop web ads and eight types of mobile web ads fell beneath this threshold. In addition, consumer input also identified those experiences that were more preferred by consumers.

It is unclear how far the Chrome blocking will go.

There is a concern that the Chrome blocking may also block stats, analytics, and other third-party code on your websites like plugins or widgets. Given that existing ad blocking frequently affects other website elements (and Publishers are often unaware of how their websites function behind aggressive blocking) its possible that Google’s efforts with Chrome may unintentionally damage sites and cause additional unforeseen issues. These types of problems are why we launched AdBlockingSucks.com and provide the WizePandas ad unblocking solution with One Click Consent(TM) to help Publishers make their ads function again for visitors who opt-in.

With all the fear-mongering about malware and “bad ad experiences,” the adblocking market is becoming very similar to the antivirus market. When Microsoft bundled Windows Defender for free into every copy of Windows, many wondered about the future of other antivirus products in the marketplace. Years later, other antivirus companies appear healthy and still going strong. We predict a similar dynamic will play out in the adblocking market. Overall, Google’s built-in ad blocker should end up being “just another” ad blocker that is on the market, alongside all the others, with its own set of pros and cons. Many users will adopt it. Existing ad block users will likely continue using their existing ad blocker. Other ad blockers will still gain new users, especially those users who want stronger blocking than what Google is likely to offer. We will continue to provide solutions to unblock all of these ads with WizePandas successfully.

We feel it is unlikely that Google will support a method to block all ads.

Because Google would appear to have complete control over who gets blocked (and why) there will always be a need for an independent voice to determine what gets blocked, such as the current set of “EasyList” ad block filters. To be clear — JuicyAds supports blocking malicious ads and tech support scams and the like. However, we strongly oppose Google and Chrome blocking Publishers who have ads that simply are “annoying” to visitors.

No matter what the company comes up with the next shiny and new method to block legitimate advertising by Publishers, there will always be a growing need for Publishers to adopt ad unblocking services. Its an arms race and Publishers must win it — otherwise, the free Internet will fall, and that means we all lose.

Juicy Jay is the CEO and Founder of JuicyAds. Read more about ad blocking solutions at AdBlockingSucks.com.