Ad Blockers in browsers have made for interesting conversations over the past several years. For users, they can provide a welcome break from intrusive ads (while also eliminating the possibility of any useful ones). For advertisers, they limit available inventory. For publishers, they are a huge threat: they block the ability to monetize a user. This makes for a debate where publishers are on one side, ad-resistant users are on the other, and browsers are stuck in the middle.
But what if a publisher is also a browser? And what if that publisher/browser's combined interest was to continue to grow its share of online media spend at the expense of other publishers? Hello Google Chrome.
Chrome's ad blocker is professed to be in the interest of its users and to be focused on eliminating particularly low-quality ad quality experiences. And I would give Google some credit: they're probably among the best to design a tool to achieve this, with their technical wherewithal combined with their understanding of ads.
But the conflict of interest is painfully obvious. Do we expect to see a Chrome-based ad blocker voluntarily blocking ads on which Google or publishers using its ad stack depend for their revenue? I would be very surprised. More likely, the Chrome ad blocker will block ads on sites using other tech to monetize their users. As a reason or explanation, Google will claim that user experience is assured via upstream controls by its important publishers, resulting in a lesser need for downstream intervention by way of an ad blocker.
For the same reason that many publishers resist technology deals with Google - its clear bias as a publisher and tech provider - giving Chrome the ability to selectively block ads is another case of Google walking a fine line between media owner and media "agnosticism."
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/17/google-chrome-ad-blocking-reactions.html
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