![]() "This is a journey we've been on a long time. Thursday's ad-blocking move "is very much the first step," Schoen said. ![]() Chrome already tries to warn you if you're going to a website it thinks is likely to unleash some sort of an attack on your computer, and Schoen said better ad security is a possible new direction for its ad clampdown. Take ad-related security risks, for example. And online news site Salon is experimenting with blocking ads as long as you let it use your browser to mine cryptocurrency - a potentially lucrative endeavor.Įxpect Chrome to make course corrections, too. Tech magazine Wired has just moved to a paywall instead of its earlier policy blocking people using ad blockers. The Washington Post and the New York Times have been following the Wall Street Journal's embrace of "paywalls" that require subscriptions, for example. Publishers are trying to cope with changes in the online ad world. hundreds of millions of online consumers have deployed ad blockers, which in turn has provoked the channeling of ever more advertisements per page to those not blocking ads. To compensate for this, web pages have become ever more cluttered with banner and video ads. It's part of an ugly feedback loop, Deloitte said in a study:Īs traffic volumes have increased, revenue per impression has fallen and the number of intermediaries extracting a commission has risen. About 85 percent block ads to speed up the web, and 76 percent say they're worried about privacy and security. Why? In 90 percent of cases, it's to banish all ads, Deloitte found in its survey of North Americans. "For millennials 20 to 33 years old, the number jumps to 45 percent." ![]() "Thirty-one percent of all consumers report that they currently use ad blocking software," said Kevin Westcott, who leads media and entertainment work at consulting firm Deloitte. The younger you are - which often means you're just the person an advertiser wants to reach - the more likely you are to block ads in some way, too. About 615 million devices use ad blockers, according to a 2017 report from PageFair, whose business involves trying to circumvent ad blockers. "Many tracking requests will be blocked on sites that fail the Better Ads standards," Google said.īut ad blockers are already a major threat to publishers. When it encounters a blacklisted page, it uses the independently maintained EasyList to decide which elements to block, and trackers from the same network origins as ads will also be stripped out, Google said. He recommends people install blockers for ads and ad trackers - and that websites target ads based on the context of the website, not on personal information.Ĭhrome will actually block some ad trackers. "There is a conflict there for them - whether they should be protecting their users or their revenue," Arrieta said. That's not surprising, given that Google's got some of the biggest tracking technology around. Apple is curtailing ad tracking in Safari, and Firefox now includes an option to shut down trackers.Ĭhrome users should be aware that Chrome isn't blocking ad trackers, only the more obnoxious ads, said Andres Arrieta, technology projects manager at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The standards Google is using only "skim off" the ads "that may induce massive eye-gougings upon viewing," AdBlock Plus operations chief Ben Williams said in a blog post.īrave Software, led by Mozilla and Firefox co-founder Brendan Eich, offers a browser that by default blocks all ads and ad tracking software, too - though in coming months the company plans to let people choose to see private, no-tracking ads and receive some of the revenue themselves. One is Eeyo's Adblock Plus, a major ad blocker funded by companies, including Google, that pay it to let some ads through if users opt in. But some in the browser world are taking a stronger stance against ad technology.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |