A recent Google proposal that could make it more difficult to block web ads has incited a great deal of criticism from developers who are offering such tools.
Google is currently working on an update to the security protocol of its Chrome browser that would limit how browser extensions built by outside developers can interact with websites. This would apply to all ads that don’t fall within the “better ads standards,” including popups and sticky ads, while benefiting. Google’s online advertising business. It is important to note that Google makes most of its revenue through online advertising, which relies on users seeing ads as they surf the web. Google’s Chrome dominates the market for desktop web browsers
While the stated goal of Google’s Chrome update is to strengthen privacy and security for Chrome users, software developers in the ad-block industry are concerned that this move will render their products all but useless. Jeremy Tillman, Director of Product at Ghostery, a popular ad-blocking software, expressed his concerns about this looming update, “Whether Google does this to protect their advertising business or simply to force its own rules on everyone else, it would be nothing less than another case of misuse of its market-dominating position.”
In an emailed statement from the company, Google has said that they are still working on the proposal with developers and wants to make sure all “fundamental use cases” will still be possible.
Our take on these changes are that it might be a positive change for affiliate marketing, the reason being that so many of these ad blockers are obvious “Pay to delete” scams. That does little to help the surfer and a lot to annoy affiliates and networks like WebClicks. For now we will monitor the effects of these proposed changes closely.
