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Google plans ad-blocking feature in Chrome browser

wsj.com

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Re: Google plans ad-blocking feature in Chrome browser

#121

Post by _eht »

libria wrote: post #42
oDot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it too, but isn't Google in a conflict of interest here?

The opposite, I would say. Google has strict guidelines for ad creative content and polices its ads as well; they're almost certainly above their own bar. So this is essentially threatening to block everyone else, or at least those behaving poorly.

As a publisher with a significant number of ad requests monthly this would be a godsend. I just spent the last week tracking down ads that were maliciously redirecting my mobile traffic off my site.

Turns out it was coming from a network called Sovrn, which is ironically a member of betterads.org and apparently "recently added an extra layer of protection from malware and redirects, all of [their] creatives are pre-scanned before they are served."

Re: Google plans ad-blocking feature in Chrome browser

#122

Post by nojvek »

taurath wrote: post #91
pookeh wrote: post #43

Hmm... Step 1. Surprise the world with better ad blocking tech than what currently exists. Step 2. When trust in tech is established, start blocking ads from other ad networks by calling them foul. Do this slowly so it's not obvious. Step 3. Wait for customers of other ad networks to notice their ads are not effective. Step 4. Steal customers...Profit.

Thats just mutually assured destruction - all IE/edge browsers would start blocking all google ads, firefox would block everyone, chrome would black all not google ads, and half the internet economy collapses

Or better ad creators start behaving nicely. Remember zombie cookies in flash, or shitty animations that chew 100% battery, or IE toolbar spam, or ActiveX ad scripts that could read local files.

Blocking ads is not an easy job. Especially with things like native ads. Blocking shitty ads should be easier though.

Re: Google plans ad-blocking feature in Chrome browser

#123

Post by hectormalot »

andrewmutz wrote: post #61
oDot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it too, but isn't Google in a conflict of interest here?

It is interesting. It seems to me that it could be considered to be monopoly abuse and it also seems to be pro-consumer. A strange combination.

Not such a strange combination in my view. As i see it, Google's customers are (for a large part) advertisers, and their product is the ability to get ads in front of people (and to get people to click on them). In the economical sense you could even argue that Google users are 'suppliers' (of eyeballs and clicks)

Monopoly abuse can of course impact both suppliers as well as customers, but in this case it's probably more likely to only impact advertisers.

- As individuals we can switch to other search engines and browsers, so it's difficult to abuse a monopoly that way.

- However, as long as we keep using Google, advertisers might have no other option to get a reach this valuable. So Google could possibly exploit its position towards advertisers. (e.g. Favor its own ads over other ad networks).

Still looks like a net win for end users.

Re: Google plans ad-blocking feature in Chrome browser

#124

Post by enknamel »

aesthetics1 wrote: post #12

"In one possible application Google is considering, it may choose to block all advertising that appears on sites with offending ads, instead of the individual offending ads themselves. In other words, site owners may be required to ensure all of their ads meet the standards, or could see all advertising across their sites blocked in Chrome." I like this approach. It punishes site owners for running malicious or badly…

Will this become a moving target? As ads become progressively "better" will the standards move up in terms of what is considered objectionable? Also this could be a huge antitrust issue. Google could start blacklisting sites or ad networks based off of their arbitrary standards and force publishers into using Google products with the guarantee they will never be blocked.

Re: Google plans ad-blocking feature in Chrome browser

#126

Post by _eht »

ohyeshedid wrote: post #85
bpicolo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the motivation isn't a bit more subtle than that. My guess would be they're hoping to improve ads across the web so that people turn off ad blockers in general.

Perhaps it is, but if there were the case why wouldn't they start by cleaning up their own platforms? There are several angles to be wary of. Locking out competitors, replacing competitor ads with their own, forcing sites to migrate to, or back to, Google ad networks, etc.

Working with Google ads for over seven years as a publisher, they have one of the cleanest ad networks in the game. On top of that, you can preview every single ad that is shown with your account and block accordingly.

I agree, they need to thread carefully, but things need to change, and that change needs to come from two angles: publishers whoring out their users and ad networks not taking responsibility for what they let on their networks.

Re: Google plans ad-blocking feature in Chrome browser

#127

Post by jerf »

userbinator wrote: post #105
derefr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really no way to disable all ad-blocking in a browser, even if the browser-vendor wanted desperately to do so, because—whether ad-stripping browser extensions exist or not—ad-stripping HTTP proxies (e.g. Privoxy) will always exist. And if you think users couldn't handle using one of those, there's nothing stopping someone from making an e.g. "Privoxy configurator + blocklist updater" browser extension that ju…

The only issue with that is HTTPS, which Privoxy currently can't handle ( https://www.privoxy.org/faq/misc.html ) and will become even more of a problem with the current "encrypt everything" trend. Certificate pinning and all the other stuff aimed at making TLS harder to MITM also gets in the way of effective adblocking proxies. The only one I know of which can MITM SSL on Windows is Proxomitron, and you still have t…

HTTPS proxying is perfectly possible, though. IMHO it's one of those bizarre cases where the code to implement it isn't even that hard necessarily. The challenge is all in the fact that A: more people think they understand the HTTPS security model than actually understand the HTTPS security model and B: it's really easy to write code that "works" in the sense that it allows you to proxy pages, but allows you to proxy too many pages too easily. Programmers generally acquire a deep and generally-mostly-justified belief that getting code to do the thing they want it to do is the hard part, so code that appears to work is likely more correct than broken, but this is one case where it's quite shockingly easy to write code that works far too "well" and all the challenge is actually in writing all the test cases for when it is supposed to fail to proxy the page.

That's a lot of headwinds on a bit of code, but they are possible to overcome, if the motivation, and perhaps even more importantly, the humility is there.

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