Google’s committed to turning on Chrome’s native ad blocker on February 15, 2018.
Google joined the Coalition for Better Ads, a group that publishes quality standards for display ads on the web, in 2017. It’s banned all full-page ad interstitials, ads that unexpectedly play sound, and flashing ads, and this week announced the Better Ads Experience Program, which provides guidelines for companies to improve users’ experience with online ads.
Google’s hope is that Chrome’s built-in ad blocker — which it sees as a “natural evolution of pop-up blockers” — will reduce the use of the third-party blockers that hide all ads. According to the company, indiscriminate ad blockers impact publishers’ bottom lines and threaten the sustainability of the web ecosystem. The native ad blocker in Chrome will block all ads on a webpage even if a single ad doesn’t follow the aforementioned standards. Google’s strategy is to use Chrome to choke off revenue from low-quality ads on websites.