Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
If Microsoft was heavily fined for installing their own browser in their operating system, how is an advertising company like Google using their browser, which has the largest market share, to block competing ads not the same thing?!
Because people in HN do have double standards when it comes to Microsoft vs Google.
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, but it will take years to happen, so worth it.
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.
That doesn't change the anticompetitive nature of their behavior but it does explain the motivation.
This is using large scale marketshare in one market to effect a tangible and monetary benefit in another market.
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) Once they have used an ad-blocker, users are very resistant to browsing the web without one
4) Users who ad-block are among the most educated and tech-savvy, and as such are a valuable demographic to miss out on
5) Ad-block use is growing steadily with no signs of slowing
So, Google's provocative and somewhat desperate move is an attempt to gain control of ad-blocking before it becomes a serious threat to their business, even in the face of serious backlash. I hope they fail.
That's true villainy right there, how dare they! /s
1) As you pointed out - Users (or their friends) will go out of their way to install an ad-blocker and set it up the first time.
2) If I still find prominently placed Google ads annoying (and I do, despite the fact that they're not animated or audible), then I will still go out of my way to block them.
BTW, the Coalition for Better Ads has many members [0], including Facebook and other big ads providers.
I'm personally not convinced this will solve the issue, but I believe it's a least a step in the right direction.
Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
[0] https://www.betterads.org/mobile-ad-density-higher-than-30/
The argument I see for this: because it's a group Google, an ad seller, is part of deciding what ads are allowed and then Google blocking violating ads. Arguably, by pairing standards with blocking, the Coalition for Better Ads, including Google, are jointly engaging in a combination in restraint of trade.
An anti-competitive action doesn't become less anti-competitive when instead of one actor with dominant marketshare, you add additional incumbent actors in the market into the decision process and make it an agreement to restrict what products are acceptable to sell and actively block other products in that category.
On the internet, there isn't anything, it's the wild west. It can't hurt to get some minimal standards, doesn't matter where it comes from as long as it's enforced.
Which is key. Television ad regulations aren't set – and enforced – by the dominant advertisement broker.
Internet is young. There will be some regulations and standards, eventually.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_advertising#Display_ads
Boy, I don't. Ask yourself why this is not an extension instead (even if installed by default)? Also, where can I download this ad list? Why do you believe lack of transparency is a step in the right direction? You really believe that the perpetrators are the best enforcers?
> it will be blocking all ads from sites where even one ad displayed on the site doesn’t meet those standards, even if the rest are technically in compliance.
Which can be interpreted as : "only run Google ads, if you use other platforms and we don't like even one of their ads we will block all your ad revenue."
Is it just me or the web is becoming more fragmented than ever: First the Safari intelligent anti tracking stuff, then Firefox's delayed loading and now this. Things will break is subtle ways.
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.
We've seen examples of ad blockers becoming problematic when they have too much market share (AdBlock Plus).
There are better options out there that (currently) give you fine-grain control over what goes into your machine, so there is pretty much no reason to give over that control to a corrupt group.
My parents don't need fine controls. They just need something to block most of the malware, adware and popups. That's the world we live in.
I don't mind a few unobtrusive ads. I really do mind those stupid ad overlays, ads that unroll themselves on top of the content I'm trying to read, and "scroll here for more" junk.
I aggressively install ad blocks and add domains to /etc/hosts to prevent having to remotely reinstall OSes every couple months.
These are the people google is trying to help with this move, imo. Because ublock still breaks pieces of the web, but they can't be trusted to browse the web without it.
No, adblock has been around for a while now, this is just throwing around frivolous claims in an attempt at faux-intellectualism.
The internet is not going to end any more than it did when we put a stop to X-10 popup ads.
It's not anti-competitive just because you don't like it.
Google is leveraging Chrome's dominant market position to (potentially) harm their competitors in an unrelated market.
You were always able to install Firefox or Chrome on Windows, but Microsoft was fined for using their dominant market position (Windows) to push a product in an unrelated market (web browsers).
It's about what the average user is aware of. Google just decided to have the majority of computer and smartphone users be opted in to an ad blocker that, of course, won't block Google ads.
"Underlying these disputes were questions over whether Microsoft altered or manipulated its application programming interfaces (APIs) to favor Internet Explorer over third party web browsers, Microsoft's conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and Microsoft's intent in its course of conduct." [1]
"Microsoft submitted a second inaccurate videotape into evidence later the same month as the first. The issue in question was how easy or hard it was for America Online users to download and install Netscape Navigator onto a Windows PC. Microsoft's videotape showed the process as being quick and easy, resulting in the Netscape icon appearing on the user's desktop. The government produced its own videotape of the same process, revealing that Microsoft's videotape had conveniently removed a long and complex part of the procedure and that the Netscape icon was not placed on the desktop, requiring a user to search for it. Brad Chase, a Microsoft vice president, verified the government's tape and conceded that Microsoft's own tape was falsified" [1]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...
The Microsoft comparison doesn't apply at all.
The standard is defined here:
https://www.betterads.org/standards/
The committe membership is defined her:
https://www.betterads.org/members/
Note it does include Google, as well as Microsoft, Facebook, the Washington Post, Unilever & others.
Far from a "Google" thing, this seems an attempt for an industry to police itself.
Given the ad experiences I've seen on many sites, if anything it's overdue.
"Free" has his share of problems, notably many people complain that the quality of their connection is strenuous at best, some people don't. It's a bit of gamble with them.
What can't be denied is that in France there was a before-Free and an after-Free. They introduced 20gb for 20E/month when everybody else was at 5gb for 50E/month (not the exact amounts, but it was that ballpark). The result is that the other ISP had to align themselves with Free, and now you have a lot of other similar offers to choose from. Yay Free.
We used to have a lot of providers, that merged into three big ones (KPN, Vodafone, T-mobile). Despite them not colluding, they basically price-matched each other which meant we had some of the highest prices in Europe.
Then Tele2 came into the market as a new player. Before Tele2 it wasn't uncommon to pay €20-30 for 2GB of data + 100 texts/minutes. Tele2 started with 25GB (don't know the texts/minutes) for €25, and now it is €25 for unlimited. Plus there are many MNVOs offering even cheaper prices, and this all combined forces the big three to follow the market.
However, T-mobile is going to buy the Dutch part of Tele2, so now we will have 3 big players again, and it is almost certain prices will rise and innovation will slow. The EU even did research and concluded that for a healthy competitive telecommunications market you need at least 4 providers.
Edit/extra info:
We have a regulatory organisation (ACM) but they are utterly spineless. For example, in The Netherlands KPN used to be a state company, and when they were privatised they basically got the entire copper grid for pennies on the euro. Because of this the ACM later ordered that they must allow other companies to hire those lines. This is all good.
But then there is the cable grid, which was built by private companies and then in the end either owned by UPC or Ziggo (so duopoly on our cable grid). ACM then allowed those two to merge, resulting in Ziggo owning ~50% of the internet market in NL, and being a monopoly provider in a lot of parts in The Netherlands. You guessed it, they have raised prices 3-4x in the last few years, waiting times for calling customer service went from a few minutes to 20+ minutes.. etc.
For clarification: in NL due to lots of mergers (and because the companies are aware that landline internet will go the way of landline calling) most telecommunication companies are both landline and mobile providers. You have Vodafone-Ziggo, KPN and T-mobile.
- Unlimited voice - Unlimited text (SMS+MMS) - 30 GB Data in Denmark DKK 129 (EUR 17 / USD 21)
- Unlimited voice - Unlimited text (SMS+MMS) - 40 GB Data in Denmark - 6 GB Data within EU DKK 149 (EUR 20 / USD 24)
Low cost plan with 6 hours of voice and 4 GB data at DKK 79 (11 EUR / USD 13)
Cheapest plan is DKK 19 (EUR 2,5 / USD 3) with everything metered.
Just across the border, in Germany, a usual data plan includes only 1-4 GB before slowdown to 2G.
The second point is that "data" is not everything. There's also the aspect of needlessly consuming the battery; and potentially loading the page slower, just to load the video ad first (especially frustrating when/if you're in an area with bad coverage).
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.
Only catch is you have to also be subscribed to an ADSL line of the same provider, otherwise the mobile plan costs 19.99€ and gets throttled after 100 GB.
France was even cheaper with the Free provider. They have 2 euros plans that are useful for most usages. (Internet cap is low but if you use more they charge you cheap fees.)
The US prices were insane for not much.
https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/app-install-b...
It uses some heuristics:
> Be visited by the user twice, over two separate days during the course of two weeks.
I think apps installed this way should be also limited to some subset of permissions they can request[1]. Otherwise this is almost like a bookmarking mechanism.
[1] They could still explicitly ask for more, on use.
???
How do you make the leap there? Adblocking = walled garden? Are you just picking a random buzzword?
Edit: Do the people replying to me understand the meaning of a "walled garden"?
> A closed platform, walled garden or closed ecosystem[1][2] is a software system where the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applications or content.
Surely you can see how google having control over which ads get through and which don't fits this definition.
Reddit mobile also has a full page ad asking you to download the app. I also doubt Google would block that. Nothing to do with it being "Google".
Because the last thing (in addition to non-competitive behavior and a host of other things) is to send all browsing traffic/history to google services to validate if its an ad or not.
To give a non controversial example, there is a list of "phishing and malware domains". It's been going on for a very long time.
"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...
"As long as I can download Netscape, having IE pre-installed is fine with me."
But what's the competition? Is uBlock gonna sue Google? No. Or adblock with a single developer? (Don't know if it's still true)... Well, no.
Let's see how it's done. Most consumers will probably benefit from it.
What's next? We're going to force shipping cars without wheels. It's unfair to decide what brand people should use without their consent.
Evidently, you can use a CD or 100 floppy disks. But not necessary because IE is the best tool in the world for installing Chrome and Mozilla.
Of course, that ended not too long ago. While having IE was necessary to hit the web, it immediately presented the choices available.
It's like the one hundreds question the first time you opened the windows media player. Why can't I play my music???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu
Having IE preinstalled was not necessary; OEMs could have (and some did) preinstall other browsers. What happened was that Microsoft decided to base unrelated parts of Windows on IE so that their browser would have to be preinstalled (Windows would not function without it). There was top-level direction on that decision and it was not actually motivated by a specific technical need.
Sure it is. If I buy a operation system and it comes bundled with a browser ... why should that be a problem?
(the problem I see somewhere else...that you have sometimes no choice except to use that OS because of market dominance)
So yes, in fact, having IE pre-installed was a problem and ultimately Microsoft was forced to create this:
"- Microsoft deliberately and for no technical reason made IE a dependency of several unrelated Windows features"
So?
But they did not forbid other browsers to run. People who wanted, could choose all the time.
And even if they would have forbidden it, I still think regulation is stupid, because it still keeps the status quo of Microsoft OS Desktop dominance. (Luckily it doesn't matter much anymore) because when you regulate the worst things away, the base is still bad, but people have less incentive to change the platform for the better ...
Yes I`m just kidding, But google is far too POWERFUL anyway.
(remark directed towards techcrunch - blocking would e.g. be uBlock Origin)
* Where can I download the ad experience report?
* So if I replace the ad using a different approach (DOM path, attrs, domain, etc) every 29 days, this isn't going to block anything?
* Where is the code that does the blocking on Chromium so I can read it? Specifically, I want to see if it's client side or not.
Can anyone shed any light here?
I hate those as much as anyone else, but....
Somehow the interstitials with countdown timers on videos, like YouTube, don't count...that's allowed.
Are they any less annoying than a pop-up that blocks text content for a set period of time? Both force an ad on you before viewing the actual content.
My worry is that this will shift many content providers from text to video. The web will turn into broadcast TV.
There are plenty of valid alternatives, Brave is one of them.
I cannot browse the web anymore with javascript enabled by default, it's such a terrible experience. I don't know how others can tolerate the state of things.
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ https://github.com/julian-klode/dns66
uBlock Origin is available on Firefox for Android, and works like a charm.
1) Use DNS66 as another user said. Doesn't require root. (Does make a local VPN, so removes option to use a VPN.)
2) Use Pi-Hole on a Pi at home and make a VPN to it. Bonus: you get access to your home network (if you config it as such) and are secure over open WiFi and hostile 4G. Doesn't require root.
3) You can root your phone and use /etc/hosts or IPT
4) Firefox 58 will allow you to run tabs as "apps" which are pinned in the OS. If that takes off, that's going to result in a massive dent in paid apps from Google Play as well as ad revenue from Android.
As for this action by Google, its a charming move. Remember that time when Google was just new, and was only text ads on Google search engine?
You can already do 4 with sites that support being a PWAs and it's pretty good.
PWA was part of Firefox 58 AFAIK, so you either need Firefox Beta or wait till January.