Comment by anth1988 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anth1988 | Hacker News Reader

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> But doesn't it hurt the advertisers? That's not a given either

Easy scenario, I come up with a new ad style that works pretty well (worth loads). Google (et al) say no, that violates some standard we set, blocked. They just cost me a bunch of money.

> Google is in a unique place to tackle the problem of poor advertising by filtering truly bad experiences

By leveraging a leading (at least) position in search, browsers, and advertising.

If they want to drop out completely from their "Coalition for Better Ads", make it a consumer group instead, then maybe I'll trust them on this. Right now this is the type of move that really makes me agree with the author, Alphabet should be broken up.

I also wonder if they are going to punish ads that look like page content (google search) or before youtube videos.

I think you could make the case that the current idea actually makes it pretty much impossible not to screw over new companies in favour of the entrenched group (google, facebook, etc...). If you are going to be restricted to the ads google already does extremely well, why wouldn't you just go with Google?

oh, and we have the issue of Android. The vast majority of mobile users just use the browser already on the phone. That would be chrome, which will have only the ad blocker provided by Google unless they change things.

Everything we've seen about this program indicates it is implemented as a blacklist of undesirable behavior and not a whitelist of known-good as formats. For your first example, the difference between this being beneficial and problematic comes down to the guidelines in place.

Note a similar FUD argument can be made about Google's own advertising network: "if we unilaterally decide we don't like your ads or your websites we'll cut you off." Similarly for search results. Yet Google's implementation and guidelines are generally seen as reasonable, economically satisfactory, and not stifling innovation.

Also, what would be the point of dropping out of this coalition? The online ads industry is largely self-regulating, there's no federal regulator setting the rules. Instead coalitions like this one are formed which set guidelines and make standards. What point would it serve to pull out of a coalition and subject yourself to the control of your competitors for a one-time show of goodwill at the expense of long-term influence?

Maybe you don't trust self-regulation, and that's fine. Appropriate even, given how often it breaks down. But keep in mind the alternatives are either government regulation or no regulation. The advertising industry is presented with an existential challenge in the form of bad advertising and ad blockers. The closer you look at it, the more you realize this move is actually a pretty good one, all things considered.

> Everything we've seen about this program indicates it is implemented as a blacklist of undesirable behavior and not a whitelist of known-good as formats.

Here's a thing: as a user, I'd much prefer them to implement it as a whitelist. We really don't need more "innovation" in ad space - because it always means more dishonesty, more annoyance and more tracking. Ads have already maxed-out their primary feature - informing consumers about things available on the market. Everything on top of that is malicious in purpose. And I think it would be better for everyone if companies would spend money and innovation effort on improving their actual product instead.

> Also, what would be the point of dropping out of this coalition?

It would remove the obvious conflict of interest. To be clear, I'm talking about dissolving the coalition of advertisers and instead having the group agree to regulation from an outside group.

> But keep in mind the alternatives are either government regulation

and I've stated outright that I'm in favour of breaking up Google over this.

Not just this, but partly.

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