Google’s Chrome version of an ad blocker might be coming within the next six months, according to the Wall Street Journal. Anonymous sources told the Wall Street Journal that Google informed companies about their six-month plan to gear up their ad blocker to be released to the public.
The Chrome version of ad blocker will prevent users from having a “bad advertising experience,” rather than block all advertisements altogether. Google announced that they were planning to build an ad blocker in Chrome back in April, according to TechCrunch. This is to avoid having to pay third party blockers like Adblock Plus to put Google advertisements on a whitelist so that they won’t be blocked to users.
Along with Google, other companies would be charged 30 percent by Adblock Plus for the ads that are shown 10 million times. The example CNBC uses is that if a company makes $10 million from advertising, then Adblock Plus will collect $3 million from the company for allowing their pre-approved ad to be shown. Because of ad blockers, companies lost millions of dollars back in 2015 because not enough people were shown the ad. Around 26 percent of people living in the U.S. use ad blockers on their internet browsers (from the Interactive Advertising Bureau), as mentioned in the Wall Street Journal report.
The new ad blocker will be available on both desktop and mobile versions of Chrome. Google will be helping out companies by creating an “Ad Experience Reports” tool, which will warn companies if their advertisements are deemed as annoying or intrusive and offer ideas on how to fix the advertisement, according to a Google blog post. The Coalition for Better Ads, which Google recently became a member of, will help determine whether or not advertisements need to be changed.
Another tool that companies can use is called “Funding Choices,” which will give users the choice to either enable ads or pay to block all ads on a specific website. Google will take 10 percent of the payment, according to CNBC. A few of the websites participating in the current beta version of “Funding Choices” include Hearst Digital Media and Business Insider.
“We believe these changes will ensure all content creators, big and small, can continue to have a sustainable way to fund their work with online advertising,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, senior vice president of ads and commerce at Google in the blog post mentioned earlier.
“We look forward to working with the Coalition as they develop marketplace guidelines for supporting the Better Ads Standards, and are committed to working closely with the entire industry—including groups like the IAB, IAB Europe, the DCN, the WFA, the ANA and the 4A’s, advertisers, agencies and publishers—to roll out these changes in a way that makes sense for users and the broader ads ecosystem.”
This new version of an ad blocker will give Google a ton of power over advertisements, according to The Verge. Google can ask any company to change their ads while Google themselves also advertise. Through the “Funding Choices” tool, Google is able to take away 10 percent of the profit from companies when people decide whether or not they want to see ads. While companies will probably change their ads for the better, Google will be monopolizing the way that ads are shown on the internet.
It hasn’t been officially announced by Google when the new Chrome ad blocker will be released. The ad blocker will be included in an update coming to Chrome in early 2018. “…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…” Ramaswamy warns.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.
