New Ad Blocker by Google Improved the Internet Prior to Launch

Google Chrome has launched a new feature that may cause consumers to see less ads than they do now, however this also may not occur despite the preemptive buildup.

 

Chrome is by far the most widely used Internet browser and recently released an ad-blocker that will block certain particularly annoying ads. The targeted ads are any that play noises or music automatically and ads that do not allow the viewer to dismiss them until a countdown has ended. Google is excluding websites from search results that breach particular guidelines, and then will attempt to filter every ad from those sites, not only the ads that are especially annoying.

 

While there was hype in advance regarding Google’s new ad-blocking maneuvers, the actual number of websites that Chrome will end up blocking ads on is not expected to be a lot. Less than 1% of the 100,000 most visited websites in Europe and North America will actually be impacted due to violation of ad guidelines.

 

Surprisingly, the Chrome ad blocker was able to make beneficial change on the web prior to the technology even being instated. Websites that would be impacted by the ad filtering were alerted prior to the technology updates, and 42% of websites complied with the changes, including Chicago Tribune, Forbes, In Touch Weekly, and Los Angeles Times.

 

It is startling that Google is open to blocking ads of all kinds that violate the restrictions, because the company has a massive ad network of its own. Google made it known that it will be blocking advertisements by the Google ad network, as well. The reason for these changes is to hopefully discourage users from installing forceful software for blocking ads that could drastically lower revenue industry-wide. The Interactive Advertising Bureau discovered in 2016 that 26% of Internet users have ad-blocking software installed on their computers, and 15% of smartphone users have ad-blocking software on their phones. Users provided many reasons for why they decided to block advertisements, including visual clutter, long loading times, and privacy fears.

 

“Ads are a feasible way for smaller businesses to get their products or services into the same marketing spaces as big box stores such as Amazon or Best Buy. As long as viewers are being respected with advertisements, businesses should not be impacted much,” remarked Paul Michaels, founder and CEO of National Bartender, a bartending school.

 

Guidelines have been released for the types of ads that are permissible and that businesses should aim for. The Coalition for Better Advertising is a forward-thinking group of tech businesses, publishers, and advertisers that reached these standards after surveying 25,000 Internet users in Europe and North America to discover which ads were the most irritating. Four kinds of desktop ads and eight kinds of mobile advertisements were selected that were identified as obnoxious. The main ads that should be avoided are those that play audio automatically and those that hide content the user wants to see.