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

techcrunch.com

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

#111

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

jicks wrote: post #11
thisisit wrote: post #2

It seems the criteria for blocking is rather discretionary. Are they going to block a site which has annoying Google ads? Frankly this seems to be another excuse to build a walled garden to try and serve their interests.

The criteria is not discretionary. They'll block ads that don't follow the guidelines defined by the Coalition for Better Ads [0] (Google is a member, but there is a lot of other members, like Facebook, ...). So yes, they'll block a site which has non-conforming Google ads. [0] : https://www.betterads.org/

Which of course raises the question - if they have the technology to detect these ads, why allow them on their network in the first place?

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

#112

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

fortythirteen wrote: post #30
ourmandave wrote: post #6

Long as I can keep using uBlock Origin and disable theirs it's fine with me.

Still doesn't make it ok, from an anti-competitive standpoint. "As long as I can download Netscape, having IE pre-installed is fine with me."

How would the typical early-2000s Windows user have downloaded Netscape without a preinstalled browser? FTP on the command line?

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

#113

Post by saas_co_de »

fortythirteen wrote: post #71
saas_co_de wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point I am making is that they are not doing this to freeze out competitors. They have already won. They don't have any meaningful competition to worry about. The threat is ad blocking and alternative browsers.

That doesn't change the anticompetitive nature of their behavior but it does explain the motivation.

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

#114

Post by saas_co_de »

paulmd wrote: post #93
adwhit wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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) O…

So Google is responding to criticisms of overly-intrusive advertising with less-intrusive advertising that doesn't poison the well for everyone, and blocking for the ads that do? That's true villainy right there, how dare they! /s

People concerned with privacy are not against ads because they are annoying but because of the systems of surveillance behind those ads. Making ads less annoying so that the majority of users continue to accept surveillance is villainy from that perspective.

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

#115

Post by bjoli »

jhasse wrote: post #67
dingo_bat wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Germany you'll get 1GB per month for 5$. And probably not LTE.

Blame the government. They sold the 3g spectrum frequencies to the phone companies at insane prices. The German consumers are still paying for it.

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

#116

Post by jasonkostempski »

rypskar wrote: post #31
jasonkostempski wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's time to start calling proper ad-blockers, "tracking blockers". It sounds more like something you need, like anti-virus, and also sounds like something that's "fair" to use if you have moral concerns about ad blocking.

I use ghostery to block tracking, no ad-blocker. But since almost all ads track users almost all ads are blocked. If anyone want to show me ads they will have to show ads without tracking that try to find which ads will be least interesting for me

This is exactly what I want to happen. I recently saw an ad on some page and was concerned uBlock Origin had missed something. I was happy to discover it was just a self-hosted JPEG wrapped in an anchor tag to a legit affiliate site.

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

#117

Post by bjoli »

visarga wrote: post #87
herbst wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's because having too powerful telecoms is bad for innovation and competition. The final poisoned fruit of successful capitalism/corporatism.

I don't know about Switzerland, but in Germany the overnment sold the rights to the 3g frequency spectrum for insane prises (billions of euros). The companies are still trying to squeeze out a maximum ROI while they still (??) have exclusive rights to the spectrum.

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

#118

Post by paulmd »

saas_co_de wrote: post #114
paulmd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Google is responding to criticisms of overly-intrusive advertising with less-intrusive advertising that doesn't poison the well for everyone, and blocking for the ads that do? That's true villainy right there, how dare they! /s

People concerned with privacy are not against ads because they are annoying but because of the systems of surveillance behind those ads. Making ads less annoying so that the majority of users continue to accept surveillance is villainy from that perspective.

This is just accelerationism. "Let's make ads terrible so people hate them, because I disagree with the fundamental concept of advertising".

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

#119

Post by user5994461 »

epicide wrote: post #105
user5994461 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a huge but subtle difference between the prevalence of ad blockers vs an ad blocker that is both backed by an ad company and built into the browser (presumably with no way to turn it off). We've seen examples of ad blockers becoming problematic when they have too much market share (AdBlock Plus).

AdBlock is fine except for not blocking google top links and amazon recommendation. It's still blocking everything else, which is a HUGE LOT.

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

#120

Post by bionoid »

rypskar wrote: post #31
jasonkostempski wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's time to start calling proper ad-blockers, "tracking blockers". It sounds more like something you need, like anti-virus, and also sounds like something that's "fair" to use if you have moral concerns about ad blocking.

I use ghostery to block tracking, no ad-blocker. But since almost all ads track users almost all ads are blocked. If anyone want to show me ads they will have to show ads without tracking that try to find which ads will be least interesting for me

I recently discovered that Ghostery was purchased by Cliqz [0], which is a company partially owned by Mozilla. They offer a free privacy-oriented browser "Cliqz" which is described on Wikipedia as:

"Cliqz plans to eventually monetize the software through a program known as Cliqz Offers, which will deliver sponsored offers to users based on their interests and browsing history. However, these recommendations will be processed locally based on a remote repository of offers, with no personally identifiable data sent to remote servers." [1]

I haven't looked further into it, but it makes me feel like I should contribute to a browser project...

[0] https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ghostery-news/ghostery-acquire...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliqz

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