By Abhimanyu Ghoshal
Google has previously outlined its plans to kill annoying ads on web pages in its Chrome browser, and its turning the feature on in version 64 of the desktop and mobile app today.
Essentially, an industry group called the Coalition for Better Ads of which Google is a member has defined standards for what qualify as intrusive ads. The list includesfull-page interstitials that appear before a page loads, flashing animated ads, and videos that autoplay with sound.
Google says it will first evaluate sites for violations of the above standards, then inform the offending sites and make reports available to them via an API, and then begin blocking ads on those pages after 30 days. Its worth noting that if a site is in violation of the Better Ads standards, all ads on its pages will be blocked, and not just the ads that arent in line.
Chromes desktop version will notify you that its blocking ads similar to how it lets you know about pop-ups; on Android, youll see a bar appear at the bottom of the screen, with an option to allow ads if thats how you want to roll.
While itll likely hurt publishers initially as they adapt to the strict standards, the move to block pushy ads seems like a good idea for users. Google says its received plenty of positive feedback from testers so far; lets see how its experiment fares at scale in the real world.
This article has been published in collaboration with The Next Web.
Featured image credit: Wikimedia.