Earlier this year, Google surprised us with the announcement that it would soon include a built-in ad-blocker in its popular Chrome browser. The company had announced the move as being part of its endeavour to improve online advertisements, with ads that were considered intrusive being automatically blocked by the browser.
We now have a date for when these changes will take effect: February 15. Chrome will filters ads based on the Better Ads Standards by the Coalition for Better Ads, which Google also joined in June of this year. Examples of ads that are considered intrusive by the organisation include pages that require you to wait for X seconds before displaying the content, auto-playing videos and sounds, large sticky ads and pop-ups, among others.
The company also provided more details on how the process for blocking ads will work for website owners, with violations of the above standards being reported to Google"s Ad Experience Report. This is also where alleged violations can be appealed by website owners. Sites that do not resolve these issues within 30 days of being reported will have all ads blocked by Chrome, which will hopefully encourage online publishers to maintain a high standard of accessibility in choosing which types of ads they display.
As an online publication, Neowin too relies on ads for operating costs and, if you use an ad blocker, we"d appreciate being whitelisted. In addition, we have an ad-free subscription for $28 a year, which is another way to show support!
Source: Google via The Next Web