Google will roll out an ad blocker for its Chrome browser next year, and it will be helping publishers who generate most of their revenue from ads to prepare for the tool's arrival.
Once the ad blocker is released next year, Chrome users will start to see fewer ads as they browse through the internet, with the tool to primarily focus on annoying ads online.
Google Chrome Ad Blocker Coming Soon
Last month, reports claimed that Google will be integrating a built-in ad blocker to the Chrome browser. The tool would become the most popular ad blocker by default if it rolls out, eliminating the need for Chrome users to download third-party software for the purpose, but it also seemingly conflicts with Google's biggest source of revenue.
In an official blog post, Google senior VP for ads and commerce Sridhar Ramaswamy confirmed that an ad blocker is on its way to Chrome.
"In dialogue with the Coalition and other industry groups, 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 starting in early 2018," Ramaswamy wrote.
The coalition that he is referring to is the Coalition for Better Ads, a group formed in 2016 that also counts Facebook, the Washington Post, P&G, Unilever, and several advertising industry groups as members. Collectively, the group is looking to strike a balance on the ads that appear online.
Google, along with other publishers, make most of their money through online ads. As such, their revenue is threatened by third-party blockers that prevent all the ads from appearing. With Google's planned ad blocker for Chrome, only the annoying ads that do not follow the Better Ads Standards will be blocked.
What Ads Will The Chrome Ad Blocker Target?
According to research carried out by the Coalition for Better Ads to come up with the Better Ads Standards, the kinds of ads viewed by users as the most annoying are pop-ups, video ads that automatically play with sound, large sticky banners, and countdowns that make users wait before they can access a webpage. For mobile, the list is longer, as it includes ads that cover 30 percent of the display, flashing animations, and scrollovers that take up the whole screen.
The Chrome ad blocker will focus on eliminating these ads, as opposed to blocking all of them. This would allow Google and publishers to continue generating revenue while preventing the browsing experience from becoming very cluttered.
Google To Help Publishers Prepare For Chrome Ad Blocker
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google will help publishers in the preparation for the arrival of the Chrome ad blocker.
In the report, the ad blocker coming to Chrome is described to function more as a quality filter. Google is said to have started reaching out to publisher partners to give clear guidelines on what the quality filter will do, with a tool coming soon that will offer publishes to flag ads on their websites that will be affected by the ad blocker.
The assistance provided by Google will give publishers several months of preparation to change their advertising styles before the planned ad blocker arrives to Chrome next year.
Google will also offer a tool named Funding Choices, which will allow publishers to show messages to users to deactivate their third-party ad blockers or pay a certain fee to browse websites without seeing ads.
