Google still has plans to introduce built-in advertising filters for its Chrome web browser, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, but it’s..
Google still has plans to introduce built-in advertising filters for its Chrome web browser, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, but it’s going to be more of a quality assurance feature, akin to existing tools in Chrome that prevent pop-ups from spawning in excess, and that warn users when they might be exposed to content that could harm their devices.
The report says that Google is also reaching out to publisher partners to provide clear guidelines about what these new quality filters will entail, and will also eventually offer a tool publishers can use themselves to flag ads that currently exist on their sites that will run afoul of the new blocker. This is designed to give publishers at least half a year to prepare and prune their advertising prior to its debut in a consumer build of the browser, which is planned for sometime next year.
These plans could still change, the WSJ report notes, but for now the standards for what kinds of ads Google will deem blockable by the filter include those categories covered under the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry organization (which includes Google among its membership) that released a list of offensive ads in March. Google’s tool is also said to block all ads on sites that cross a certain level of unacceptable advertising content, according to these standards.
Meanwhile, the search giant is also said to be offering up a new tool referred to as “Funding Choices” which will allow publishers to display messages asking visitors to disable their own third-party ad blockers or pay up for a pass to go ad-free, should they opt to use it.
Google was said to be working on this feature back in April. The company’s decision to roll this into its own browser is likely motivated, at least in part, by a desire to put control over ad-blocking tech into its own hands, since much of that now resides by third parties, including some that collect fees from Google in exchange for whitelisting its own advertising content.
