On Including Ad Blocking in Chrome

As the small team responsible for the most popular ad blocker on Google’s Chrome browser, we read with great interest yesterday’s well-reported Wall Street Journal piece on Google’s plans to potentially incorporate ad blocking technology into Chrome.

For the tens of millions of people who use AdBlock to keep their browsing experience safe from malware, tracking, and intrusive advertising, we’d like to provide AdBlock’s perspective on the announcement.

First and foremost, if the speculation is accurate, we think this would be a smart decision on Google’s part. Ad blockers have become so popular specifically because they give users a way to voice their displeasure with the rise of adtech and ad formats that seem to exist solely to serve the needs of adtech vendors themselves. In short: ad blockers provide users with a check against rampant ads.

Incorporating ad blocking technology into Chrome as a default setting has the potential to be great for users. Since AdBlock’s debut in 2009 it has been downloaded more than 250 million times and we believe that by including even a limited set of ad blocking capabilities into Chrome, Google would help validate what we’ve been working on for the last eight years.

And let’s be clear: ad blocking is as important as ever. Whether users are facing malware introduced through ads, ongoing threats to their privacy, or increasingly shrill and intrusive forms of advertising, the Web has gotten to the point where not using an ad blocker makes most online activity not only more annoying but dangerous.

Fortunately, publishers, advertisers, advertising industry coalitions, and Eyeo, the creator of Adblock Plus, all realize that this is a huge problem and have proposed a number of potential solutions. Among them is Eyeo’s Acceptable Ads program, which provides publishers with a way to generate revenue from consumers who have ad blockers installed, as long as their ads meet certain criteria. AdBlock supports Acceptable Ads and Eyeo’s decision to turn over control of the Acceptable Ads program to a committee of publishers, advertisers, and eventually users. Not surprisingly, the program has led to criticism.

For Google, a company that makes huge sums of money from advertising, it remains to be seen just how thoroughly they will try and stamp out ads. They undoubtedly have the ability to make a significant impact, much like they did in helping eliminate pop-up ads in years past. Regardless of what Google decides to do, at AdBlock our primary goal will remain the same: to ensure that the considerations of the people who use these sites and view these ads are part of the discussion.

With that in mind, there are some developments that we at AdBlock will be monitoring closely.

1. How actively will Google police ads on YouTube, which it owns, and will it address the widespread complaints users have about incessant advertising before and during YouTube videos?
2. How aggressively will Google approach some of the widespread tracking used to target ads to users?
3. What will be done about sites that use anti-user services such as InstartLogic, SourcePoint and other vendors that force ads upon users (“ad recovery” solutions in industry parlance) with ad blockers installed, using technologies that can slow down the performance of popular websites to a crawl?

Do we think Google’s announcement will obviate the need for third-party ad blockers? Far from it. We can use all the help we can get. In the end, whatever makes the Web safer for users makes it better for publishers and advertisers, too, and we think that’s a very good thing.