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Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15

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Re: Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15

#71

Post by fortythirteen »

saas_co_de wrote: post #40
fortythirteen wrote: post #27

How is this not anti-competitive behavior? If Microsoft was heavily fined for installing their own browser in their operating system, how is an advertising company like Google using their browser, which has the largest market share, to block competing ads not the same thing?!

Exactly. I don't see how this can possibly not be considered illegal anti-competitive behavior. Their goals are not really anti-competitive. The point of this feature is to stop the bleed from ad blocking extensions and alternative browsers which are the real threat to their business. But there is no way for them to do this that doesn't end up looking really bad. Probably they know it will get shut down eventually, b…

> Their goals are not really anti-competitive

One could make the argument that by putting a web browser in Windows, Microsoft was only providing a common service to their default OS. The problem here is that Google makes almost all its revenue from the very medium that they are now actively blocking from other providers.

Re: Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15

#72

Post by jorvi »

monsieurbanana wrote: post #47
0xFFC wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do you pay for that plan?

20 euros per month with "Free" (that's the name of the company) ISP. "Free" has his share of problems, notably many people complain that the quality of their connection is strenuous at best, some people don't. It's a bit of gamble with them. What can't be denied is that in France there was a before-Free and an after-Free. They introduced 20gb for 20E/month when everybody else was at 5gb for 50E/month (not the exact a…

Yes I think France had the same problem we have (and are gonna have again) in The Netherlands.

We used to have a lot of providers, that merged into three big ones (KPN, Vodafone, T-mobile). Despite them not colluding, they basically price-matched each other which meant we had some of the highest prices in Europe.

Then Tele2 came into the market as a new player. Before Tele2 it wasn't uncommon to pay €20-30 for 2GB of data + 100 texts/minutes. Tele2 started with 25GB (don't know the texts/minutes) for €25, and now it is €25 for unlimited. Plus there are many MNVOs offering even cheaper prices, and this all combined forces the big three to follow the market.

However, T-mobile is going to buy the Dutch part of Tele2, so now we will have 3 big players again, and it is almost certain prices will rise and innovation will slow. The EU even did research and concluded that for a healthy competitive telecommunications market you need at least 4 providers.

Edit/extra info:

We have a regulatory organisation (ACM) but they are utterly spineless. For example, in The Netherlands KPN used to be a state company, and when they were privatised they basically got the entire copper grid for pennies on the euro. Because of this the ACM later ordered that they must allow other companies to hire those lines. This is all good.

But then there is the cable grid, which was built by private companies and then in the end either owned by UPC or Ziggo (so duopoly on our cable grid). ACM then allowed those two to merge, resulting in Ziggo owning ~50% of the internet market in NL, and being a monopoly provider in a lot of parts in The Netherlands. You guessed it, they have raised prices 3-4x in the last few years, waiting times for calling customer service went from a few minutes to 20+ minutes.. etc.

For clarification: in NL due to lots of mergers (and because the companies are aware that landline internet will go the way of landline calling) most telecommunication companies are both landline and mobile providers. You have Vodafone-Ziggo, KPN and T-mobile.

Re: Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15

#74

Post by notyourday »

sly010 wrote: post #69
ajnin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially that part : > it will be blocking all ads from sites where even one ad displayed on the site doesn’t meet those standards, even if the rest are technically in compliance. Which can be interpreted as : "only run Google ads, if you use other platforms and we don't like even one of their ads we will block all your ad revenue."

We just need a browser extension to _install_ a single non compliant ad on every page and let chrome do the rest :) Is it just me or the web is becoming more fragmented than ever: First the Safari intelligent anti tracking stuff, then Firefox's delayed loading and now this. Things will break is subtle ways.

This is brilliant

Re: Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15

#75

Post by user5994461 »

sly010 wrote: post #69
ajnin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially that part : > it will be blocking all ads from sites where even one ad displayed on the site doesn’t meet those standards, even if the rest are technically in compliance. Which can be interpreted as : "only run Google ads, if you use other platforms and we don't like even one of their ads we will block all your ad revenue."

We just need a browser extension to _install_ a single non compliant ad on every page and let chrome do the rest :) Is it just me or the web is becoming more fragmented than ever: First the Safari intelligent anti tracking stuff, then Firefox's delayed loading and now this. Things will break is subtle ways.

It's always been pretty fragmented by browser. The different only affect some edge case around tracking, don't really mind breaking evil websites.

It's good on long term. The infestation of ad is really really bad. My mother and my girlfriend can hardly browse the web anymore.

Re: Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15

#76

Post by exhilaration »

pc86 wrote: post #63
jwilk wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the HN guidelines: Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

Saying "According to the article" is not insinuating someone didn't read it. It's actually very close to "The article mentions that" which is the suggested phrase in your very quote.

I'm pretty sure GP edited their comment.

Re: Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15

#77

Post by adwhit »

saas_co_de wrote: post #40
fortythirteen wrote: post #27

How is this not anti-competitive behavior? If Microsoft was heavily fined for installing their own browser in their operating system, how is an advertising company like Google using their browser, which has the largest market share, to block competing ads not the same thing?!

Exactly. I don't see how this can possibly not be considered illegal anti-competitive behavior. Their goals are not really anti-competitive. The point of this feature is to stop the bleed from ad blocking extensions and alternative browsers which are the real threat to their business. But there is no way for them to do this that doesn't end up looking really bad. Probably they know it will get shut down eventually, b…

I think this is a critical point. I bet that Google has reams of internal research on the use of ad-blockers. I am further willing to bet they have discovered the following:

1) Users say they block ads because they are annoying, rather than any deeper philosophical arguments about the nature of advertising

2) Users tend not to bother with white-listing and just use the defaults - i.e. block all ads, even Google!

3) Once they have used an ad-blocker, users are very resistant to browsing the web without one

4) Users who ad-block are among the most educated and tech-savvy, and as such are a valuable demographic to miss out on

5) Ad-block use is growing steadily with no signs of slowing

So, Google's provocative and somewhat desperate move is an attempt to gain control of ad-blocking before it becomes a serious threat to their business, even in the face of serious backlash. I hope they fail.

Re: Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15

#78

Post by user5994461 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #66
jicks wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article, the ads deemed "overly annoying or intrusive" are defined by "the standards established by the Coalition for Better Ads, of which it is a member". Since it's not Google actually deciding this, how is that anti-competitive? BTW, the Coalition for Better Ads has many members [0], including Facebook and other big ads providers. I'm personally not convinced this will solve the issue, but I belie…

> According to the article, the ads deemed "overly annoying or intrusive" are defined by "the standards established by the Coalition for Better Ads, of which it is a member". Since it's not Google actually deciding this, how is that anti-competitive? The argument I see for this: because it's a group Google, an ad seller, is part of deciding what ads are allowed and then Google blocking violating ads. Arguably, by pai…

Let's take TV as a comparison. On TV the ads have guidelines on what they can do and show, set by the tv channel and the broader regulation.

On the internet, there isn't anything, it's the wild west. It can't hurt to get some minimal standards, doesn't matter where it comes from as long as it's enforced.

Re: Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15

#79

Post by jicks »

pc86 wrote: post #63
jwilk wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the HN guidelines: Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

Saying "According to the article" is not insinuating someone didn't read it. It's actually very close to "The article mentions that" which is the suggested phrase in your very quote.

I edited my comment to follow the guidelines.

Re: Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15

#80

Post by herbst »

dingo_bat wrote: post #62
Artlav wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are all probably too rich to understand the concept of paying for mobile data.

I pay 5$ for three months unlimited LTE data on my phone here in India. They throttle me if I consume more than 1GB in a day. But that's enough for me to not worry about auto playing videos. But I really hate the audio. My point is that you don't have to be rich to not have to worry about mobile data now.

I pay $1.20 a day for 20MB LTE and "unlimited" slow connection. 20MB is not even a writing error, usually the first thing that happens when i read news in the morning is a SMS that i went over my high speed limit.

This is in Switzerland, and i had similar bad offers in the Netherlands and Germany.

My point is, while most countries figured this out meanwhile. Some "wealthy" ones didnt.

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