Earlier this year, Chromium developers announced their plans to begin blocking ads that do not adhere to the Better Ads Experience Program laid out by the Coalition for Better Ads. The new policy will apply to any and all advertisers, Google’s platforms included.
This week, developers shared the date that the new ad blocking protocols would take effect. From the Google developer’s update page:
Violations of the Standards are reported to sites via the Ad Experience Report, and site owners can submit their site for re-review once the violations have been fixed. Starting on February 15, in line with the Coalition’s guidelines, Chrome will remove all ads from sites that have a “failing” status in the Ad Experience Report for more than 30 days. All of this information can be found in the Ad Experience Report Help Center, and our product forums are available to help address any questions or feedback.
February 15th is the day.
In theory, this will create a better web experience all around by reducing intrusive advertising. Site owners rely on ad revenue in order to continue providing content for readers. However, with the increasing number of popovers, redirects and all-out browser highjacks, many readers opt to use ad blocking software or extensions when consuming media and rightfully so.
When a site becomes burdensome to read or navigate due to ads, I am the first in line to never visit that site again but the fact remains, advertising is key to sites like ours and thousands of others to continue producing content. Creating a better ad experience is crucial in keeping an open web with quality, free sites.
Source: Google Developers via VentureBeat
