If Microsoft was heavily fined for installing their own browser in their operating system, how is an advertising company like Google using their browser, which has the largest market share, to block competing ads not the same thing?!
> it will be blocking all ads from sites where even one ad displayed on the site doesn’t meet those standards, even if the rest are technically in compliance.
Which can be interpreted as : "only run Google ads, if you use other platforms and we don't like even one of their ads we will block all your ad revenue."
We just need a browser extension to _install_ a single non compliant ad on every page and let chrome do the rest :)
Is it just me or the web is becoming more fragmented than ever: First the Safari intelligent anti tracking stuff, then Firefox's delayed loading and now this. Things will break is subtle ways.
My mother and my partner's mother respond every time to those full page takeover ads that mimic a windows dialog box and play scary audio about viruses, tell her to call / give someone her credit card / let them remote into her computer. It's utterly infuriating these parasites are allowed to buy ads.
I aggressively install ad blocks and add domains to /etc/hosts to prevent having to remotely reinstall OSes every couple months.
These are the people google is trying to help with this move, imo. Because ublock still breaks pieces of the web, but they can't be trusted to browse the web without it.
There's a huge but subtle difference between the prevalence of ad blockers vs an ad blocker that is both backed by an ad company and built into the browser (presumably with no way to turn it off).
We've seen examples of ad blockers becoming problematic when they have too much market share (AdBlock Plus).
The fact that AdBlock receives money to break the very thing they're supposed to fix (at the user's expense) is pretty messed up. Sure, it's better than nothing, but that's really not saying much.
There are better options out there that (currently) give you fine-grain control over what goes into your machine, so there is pretty much no reason to give over that control to a corrupt group.
I understand your point that they don't need fine grain controls, but does uBlock Origin require anything beyond the defaults? I'm just not seeing the benefit from using AdBlock Plus, anymore.
i agree. i don't think it ruined the purpose. the purpose (in my eyes, yours may see it different) was to reduce offensive, dangerous, and just plain obnoxious advertising.
I don't mind a few unobtrusive ads. I really do mind those stupid ad overlays, ads that unroll themselves on top of the content I'm trying to read, and "scroll here for more" junk.
Exactly. I don't see how this can possibly not be considered illegal anti-competitive behavior.
Their goals are not really anti-competitive. The point of this feature is to stop the bleed from ad blocking extensions and alternative browsers which are the real threat to their business.
But there is no way for them to do this that doesn't end up looking really bad.
Probably they know it will get shut down eventually, but it will take years to happen, so worth it.
I think this is a critical point. I bet that Google has reams of internal research on the use of ad-blockers. I am further willing to bet they have discovered the following:
1) Users say they block ads because they are annoying, rather than any deeper philosophical arguments about the nature of advertising
2) Users tend not to bother with white-listing and just use the defaults - i.e. block all ads, even Google!
3) Once they have used an ad-blocker, users are very resistant to browsing the web without one
4) Users who ad-block are among the most educated and tech-savvy, and as such are a valuable demographic to miss out on
5) Ad-block use is growing steadily with no signs of slowing
So, Google's provocative and somewhat desperate move is an attempt to gain control of ad-blocking before it becomes a serious threat to their business, even in the face of serious backlash. I hope they fail.
So Google is responding to criticisms of overly-intrusive advertising with less-intrusive advertising that doesn't poison the well for everyone, and blocking for the ads that do?
That's true villainy right there, how dare they! /s
People concerned with privacy are not against ads because they are annoying but because of the systems of surveillance behind those ads. Making ads less annoying so that the majority of users continue to accept surveillance is villainy from that perspective.
They are not responding to criticisms, but rather that people are installing spam protection for the web, making web advertisement about as relevant as email advertisement. Google did not become one of the richest companies in the world through email advertisement, and the reason is obvious. Email advertisement is kind of dead as it is impossible to have a email box without blocking unwanted email.
I hope they fail as well. Here is one scenario where I think they will:
1) As you pointed out - Users (or their friends) will go out of their way to install an ad-blocker and set it up the first time.
2) If I still find prominently placed Google ads annoying (and I do, despite the fact that they're not animated or audible), then I will still go out of my way to block them.
One could make the argument that by putting a web browser in Windows, Microsoft was only providing a common service to their default OS. The problem here is that Google makes almost all its revenue from the very medium that they are now actively blocking from other providers.
The point I am making is that they are not doing this to freeze out competitors. They have already won. They don't have any meaningful competition to worry about. The threat is ad blocking and alternative browsers.
That doesn't change the anticompetitive nature of their behavior but it does explain the motivation.
According to the article, the ads deemed "overly annoying or intrusive" are defined by "the standards established by the Coalition for Better Ads, of which it is a member". Since it's not Google actually deciding this, how is that anti-competitive?
BTW, the Coalition for Better Ads has many members [0], including Facebook and other big ads providers.
I'm personally not convinced this will solve the issue, but I believe it's a least a step in the right direction.
> According to the article, the ads deemed "overly annoying or intrusive" are defined by "the standards established by the Coalition for Better Ads, of which it is a member". Since it's not Google actually deciding this, how is that anti-competitive?
The argument I see for this: because it's a group Google, an ad seller, is part of deciding what ads are allowed and then Google blocking violating ads. Arguably, by pairing standards with blocking, the Coalition for Better Ads, including Google, are jointly engaging in a combination in restraint of trade.
An anti-competitive action doesn't become less anti-competitive when instead of one actor with dominant marketshare, you add additional incumbent actors in the market into the decision process and make it an agreement to restrict what products are acceptable to sell and actively block other products in that category.
Let's take TV as a comparison. On TV the ads have guidelines on what they can do and show, set by the tv channel and the broader regulation.
On the internet, there isn't anything, it's the wild west. It can't hurt to get some minimal standards, doesn't matter where it comes from as long as it's enforced.
Online advertising has existed for over 25 years. [1] Online ad brokers (i.e., competitors with Google) have existed for nearly 20 years. It is incredibly disingenuous of you to pretend as if Google is in any way "forced" to play both gatekeeper and ad broker, like no-one else is trying to compete in that space. Developing Chrome was a deliberate choice by Google to position themselves to own the means by which users consume ads, search (ads), and video (ads).
Legally, it matters a lot whether it's the government enforcing rules which restrain trade or a private coalition including the major incumbent players in the industry being restrained.
> but I believe it's a least a step in the right direction.
Boy, I don't. Ask yourself why this is not an extension instead (even if installed by default)? Also, where can I download this ad list? Why do you believe lack of transparency is a step in the right direction? You really believe that the perpetrators are the best enforcers?
Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
Saying "According to the article" is not insinuating someone didn't read it. It's actually very close to "The article mentions that" which is the suggested phrase in your very quote.
Although that was the central point, they did a lot more than just default the browser. IMO I don't think bundling a browser in and of itself is anti competitive.
"Underlying these disputes were questions over whether Microsoft altered or manipulated its application programming interfaces (APIs) to favor Internet Explorer over third party web browsers, Microsoft's conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and Microsoft's intent in its course of conduct." [1]
"Microsoft submitted a second inaccurate videotape into evidence later the same month as the first. The issue in question was how easy or hard it was for America Online users to download and install Netscape Navigator onto a Windows PC. Microsoft's videotape showed the process as being quick and easy, resulting in the Netscape icon appearing on the user's desktop. The government produced its own videotape of the same process, revealing that Microsoft's videotape had conveniently removed a long and complex part of the procedure and that the Netscape icon was not placed on the desktop, requiring a user to search for it. Brad Chase, a Microsoft vice president, verified the government's tape and conceded that Microsoft's own tape was falsified" [1]
Because there are multiple competing products you can switch to, or even multiple additional products (i.e. ublock/adblock) which you can add in Google's own product if you disagree with their stance.
It's not anti-competitive just because you don't like it.
Google is leveraging Chrome's dominant market position to (potentially) harm their competitors in an unrelated market.
You were always able to install Firefox or Chrome on Windows, but Microsoft was fined for using their dominant market position (Windows) to push a product in an unrelated market (web browsers).
And I used IE to download Netscape. Didn't stop that being anti-competitive.
It's about what the average user is aware of. Google just decided to have the majority of computer and smartphone users be opted in to an ad blocker that, of course, won't block Google ads.
Ad companies don't get to choose which browser their ads are viewed with. Google is abusing their position as the market leader in one market to gain an unfair advantage in another market.
It's pre-installed. Their built-in adblocker will instantly get a huge market share, on the back of Chrome. There's no parallel to that with physical products.
As someone familiar with how this group came into being, I can tell you that Google is very much in the driver's seat. I don't fault them for that and it's probably unavoidable - but it's worth at least being transparent about it on a forum like this.
The only thing that has changed since the 90s is antitrust enforcement, and even then the DOJ did not go nearly as far as they could have with Microsoft.
It's not "free", they give it away to sell ads. With Microsoft, before the constant update stuff, you could at least say you buy version X of product Y and then you have that, like some tool in a tool shed. Now that's a shifting mess of attached strings, too, but Google was never anything but that.
It's really, really dumb, but video is actually far more bandwidth efficient than the alternative everyone uses, which are multi-MB GIF files. I don't know enough about the file format, but I suspect it would be difficult to download the first frame of a GIF then immediately stop downloading the rest of the file (which would probably be the best of both worlds).
It depends on where you are, I guess. I pay for data on my cell in France but the amount of data I am allowed each month before things start to slow down (100GB, up from 50GB a few months ago) means I never get close to getting throttled by auto-playing videos.
The French data plan even includes 25 GB of roaming which you can use in Germany, IIRC you can choose between Telekom or Vodafone network. Unfortunately, you still have to be in France most of the time, or they will cancel your contract.
Lucky you. I'm in France and I got 50 Mo before starting to pay for my data. Granted, I'm using the old 5€ offering from Orange (called Sosh), because I'm not using a lot of data (no video, very few pictures, some text) and I'm too lazy to change. Also I'm not sure my phone can support another mobile network.
Oh I'm pretty sure my phone support LTE, but I'm saying that the phone might be locked to a provider (Orange) and will reject any SIM not from it. Since the phone is originally from a company which has an exclusive contract with Orange for all mobile hardware and subscriptions, it is not surprising.
20 euros per month with "Free" (that's the name of the company) ISP.
"Free" has his share of problems, notably many people complain that the quality of their connection is strenuous at best, some people don't. It's a bit of gamble with them.
What can't be denied is that in France there was a before-Free and an after-Free. They introduced 20gb for 20E/month when everybody else was at 5gb for 50E/month (not the exact amounts, but it was that ballpark). The result is that the other ISP had to align themselves with Free, and now you have a lot of other similar offers to choose from. Yay Free.
Yes I think France had the same problem we have (and are gonna have again) in The Netherlands.
We used to have a lot of providers, that merged into three big ones (KPN, Vodafone, T-mobile). Despite them not colluding, they basically price-matched each other which meant we had some of the highest prices in Europe.
Then Tele2 came into the market as a new player.
Before Tele2 it wasn't uncommon to pay €20-30 for 2GB of data + 100 texts/minutes. Tele2 started with 25GB (don't know the texts/minutes) for €25, and now it is €25 for unlimited.
Plus there are many MNVOs offering even cheaper prices, and this all combined forces the big three to follow the market.
However, T-mobile is going to buy the Dutch part of Tele2, so now we will have 3 big players again, and it is almost certain prices will rise and innovation will slow. The EU even did research and concluded that for a healthy competitive telecommunications market you need at least 4 providers.
Edit/extra info:
We have a regulatory organisation (ACM) but they are utterly spineless. For example, in The Netherlands KPN used to be a state company, and when they were privatised they basically got the entire copper grid for pennies on the euro. Because of this the ACM later ordered that they must allow other companies to hire those lines. This is all good.
But then there is the cable grid, which was built by private companies and then in the end either owned by UPC or Ziggo (so duopoly on our cable grid). ACM then allowed those two to merge, resulting in Ziggo owning ~50% of the internet market in NL, and being a monopoly provider in a lot of parts in The Netherlands. You guessed it, they have raised prices 3-4x in the last few years, waiting times for calling customer service went from a few minutes to 20+ minutes.. etc.
For clarification: in NL due to lots of mergers (and because the companies are aware that landline internet will go the way of landline calling) most telecommunication companies are both landline and mobile providers. You have Vodafone-Ziggo, KPN and T-mobile.
I pay 12-15 pounds per month here in the UK, for unlimited calls and internet in the world. (I think in Europe I can call any european number for free, but in outside of it I might be limited to free calls to the UK only.)
France was even cheaper with the Free provider. They have 2 euros plans that are useful for most usages. (Internet cap is low but if you use more they charge you cheap fees.)
video also slurps battery which is the thing that gets me way more. it's basically saying to me "the things you wanted to do later today, like you know go home, they're not important". Love it when google takes every opportunity to make sure that GPS is still on.
I pay 5$ for three months unlimited LTE data on my phone here in India. They throttle me if I consume more than 1GB in a day. But that's enough for me to not worry about auto playing videos. But I really hate the audio. My point is that you don't have to be rich to not have to worry about mobile data now.
That's (a) a very good price, and (b) I suspect a lot of money, for people in India. You are not "rich" by western standards, but you may be by Indian ones... and anyway, the bottom line is that you are fortunate enough to afford high-quality, unlimited mobile data. I suspect there are plenty of people in the world who don't have unlimited data (e.g. I don't, not that I mind much).
The second point is that "data" is not everything. There's also the aspect of needlessly consuming the battery; and potentially loading the page slower, just to load the video ad first (especially frustrating when/if you're in an area with bad coverage).
I pay $1.20 a day for 20MB LTE and "unlimited" slow connection. 20MB is not even a writing error, usually the first thing that happens when i read news in the morning is a SMS that i went over my high speed limit.
This is in Switzerland, and i had similar bad offers in the Netherlands and Germany.
My point is, while most countries figured this out meanwhile. Some "wealthy" ones didnt.
I don't know about Switzerland, but in Germany the overnment sold the rights to the 3g frequency spectrum for insane prises (billions of euros). The companies are still trying to squeeze out a maximum ROI while they still (??) have exclusive rights to the spectrum.
15.99€ per month for unlimited LTE in France with 25 GB of roaming in EU+USA included. No binding contract duration, you can cancel with a month's notice.
Only catch is you have to also be subscribed to an ADSL line of the same provider, otherwise the mobile plan costs 19.99€ and gets throttled after 100 GB.
It's almost like Google's talking out of both sides of its mouth: On one side, to sell through AMP, they talk through how much it benefits people with constrained/metered bandwidth (3G) as a worldwide concern, and then are just fine with auto-playing videos. For a company hyped up enough to peddle performance as a first-class citizen, this is a very questionable decision.
Just when we got everything somewhat standardized to use the same application (browser) for all content this stupid separate app for every content producer culture explodes. Seems like three steps back
> Be visited by the user twice, over two separate days during the course of two weeks.
I think apps installed this way should be also limited to some subset of permissions they can request[1]. Otherwise this is almost like a bookmarking mechanism.
[1] They could still explicitly ask for more, on use.
Google's own site doesn't do this! I haven't visited google sheets on my phone in quite a while (ever?), but when I go to sheets.google.com, I get an ad for the google sheets app, and it's in no way clear that it's possible to use a web interface. Same for google docs.
It seems the criteria for blocking is rather discretionary. Are they going to block a site which has annoying Google ads? Frankly this seems to be another excuse to build a walled garden to try and serve their interests.
The criteria is not discretionary. They'll block ads that don't follow the guidelines defined by the Coalition for Better Ads [0] (Google is a member, but there is a lot of other members, like Facebook, ...). So yes, they'll block a site which has non-conforming Google ads.
Depends on how you define discretionary here. I say it's discretionary if a human chooses instead of a computer with clearly defined constraints. So if it's not discretionary, can you tell me what the specific rules are for determining something is an ad as opposed to some other kind of image?
I personally don't see a difference. They are putting a notice up that is trying to entice me to "buy" something. Why does it matter if it's from a 3rd party or not?
> A closed platform, walled garden or closed ecosystem[1][2] is a software system where the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applications or content.
Surely you can see how google having control over which ads get through and which don't fits this definition.
As someone who was already using ad block this might be bad for me. If everyone starts using ad block, and if intrusive ads are more profitable than the approved ads, then advertisers will be pressured to find better ways to subvert ad block. The good times of ad block might be in the past, and the arms race accelerating.
Will it be using static whitelist files (and will they be updated separately, or as part of the browser update)?
Because the last thing (in addition to non-competitive behavior and a host of other things) is to send all browsing traffic/history to google services to validate if its an ad or not.
I don't think it's completely fair to compare "Safe Browsing Lists" to ad blocking. While I agree and don't like that Google is a gatekeeper of those, it's sparingly used in my experience. Lists like these would require much more maintenance and oversight. I suppose you could say it is similar in how the lists might be updated, which IIRC is via an "extension"-like updating mechanism via crx update files.
Yeah, it's time to start calling proper ad-blockers, "tracking blockers". It sounds more like something you need, like anti-virus, and also sounds like something that's "fair" to use if you have moral concerns about ad blocking.
I use ghostery to block tracking, no ad-blocker. But since almost all ads track users almost all ads are blocked. If anyone want to show me ads they will have to show ads without tracking that try to find which ads will be least interesting for me
I recently discovered that Ghostery was purchased by Cliqz [0], which is a company partially owned by Mozilla. They offer a free privacy-oriented browser "Cliqz" which is described on Wikipedia as:
"Cliqz plans to eventually monetize the software through a program known as Cliqz Offers, which will deliver sponsored offers to users based on their interests and browsing history. However, these recommendations will be processed locally based on a remote repository of offers, with no personally identifiable data sent to remote servers." [1]
I haven't looked further into it, but it makes me feel like I should contribute to a browser project...
This is exactly what I want to happen. I recently saw an ad on some page and was concerned uBlock Origin had missed something. I was happy to discover it was just a self-hosted JPEG wrapped in an anchor tag to a legit affiliate site.
That sounds like my cue to point out Privacy Badger from EFF, which does exactly that. It also works adaptively: it'll block any domain that looks like it's trying to track you, rather than relying on a central list.
Windows became the dominant OS because of demand from computer users; the problem was that Microsoft used its dominance in the OS market as leverage to gain dominance in the browser market. It is not just that the OS came with a bundled browser -- Microsoft deliberately and for no technical reason made IE a dependency of several unrelated Windows features (e.g. the desktop, the file browser, etc.). Most people received Windows pre-installed on a computer they purchased; had Microsoft not made IE a dependency of Windows itself, OEMs would have bundled browsers according to customer demand.
So yes, in fact, having IE pre-installed was a problem and ultimately Microsoft was forced to create this:
Which was ridiculously as well, just like the cookie thing.
"- Microsoft deliberately and for no technical reason made IE a dependency of several unrelated Windows features"
So?
But they did not forbid other browsers to run. People who wanted, could choose all the time.
And even if they would have forbidden it, I still think regulation is stupid, because it still keeps the status quo of Microsoft OS Desktop dominance.
(Luckily it doesn't matter much anymore) because when you regulate the worst things away, the base is still bad, but people have less incentive to change the platform for the better ...
Having IE preinstalled was not necessary; OEMs could have (and some did) preinstall other browsers. What happened was that Microsoft decided to base unrelated parts of Windows on IE so that their browser would have to be preinstalled (Windows would not function without it). There was top-level direction on that decision and it was not actually motivated by a specific technical need.
Maybe so, but there is also the fact that a lot of third-party software for Windows used IE simply because it was there, which obviously ate the market share of other browsers.
No, they'll only block ads that don't follow the guidelines defined by the Coalition for Better Ads [0] (Google is a member, but there is a lot of other members, like Facebook, ...). Note that this may include ads provided by Google.
It is either naive or cynical to insist that a giant unaccountable organization will or won't do anything in particular with respect to its core business.
The best way for Google to solve this problem, is to block all ads by default in chrome, remove ads on google.com, and charge users a yearly fee to click to the next page on any search result. Thus you have users paying real money to use google's full search feature. Everyone is happy.
I wonder if this will be enabled on Chrome for mobile, too. Since Chrome doesn't have extensions, and therefore ublock origin, on mobile, Google has little incentive to enable it there. I assume they will enable it there, too, but you never know.
This should be great on mobile. On mobile there are no extensions and there are at least two news sites I frequent that abuse it by showing a full page popup before every article.
Problem isn't browser on Android. You can install another like many others already said (I use Firefox + uBlock). The problem is that apps use Webview to embed. So you're going to need to use another option to block ads on Android in general:
1) Use DNS66 as another user said. Doesn't require root. (Does make a local VPN, so removes option to use a VPN.)
2) Use Pi-Hole on a Pi at home and make a VPN to it. Bonus: you get access to your home network (if you config it as such) and are secure over open WiFi and hostile 4G. Doesn't require root.
3) You can root your phone and use /etc/hosts or IPT
4) Firefox 58 will allow you to run tabs as "apps" which are pinned in the OS. If that takes off, that's going to result in a massive dent in paid apps from Google Play as well as ad revenue from Android.
As for this action by Google, its a charming move. Remember that time when Google was just new, and was only text ads on Google search engine?
Some apps might use a WebView but any app that's using custom tabs ('Chrome tabs') can take advantage of the browser ad blocking. For Firefox all you have to do is turn it on in Firefox and make it your default browser.
You can already do 4 with sites that support being a PWAs and it's pretty good.
AFAIK most apps use WebView. I use Firefox as default browser (even disabled Chrome, not using it), and still see ads (that is w/o any of the other methods mentioned).
PWA was part of Firefox 58 AFAIK, so you either need Firefox Beta or wait till January.
Brave is great. If you go into settings and disable javascript by default, you can easily use the Brave button to whitelist javascript on a site-by-site basis.
I cannot browse the web anymore with javascript enabled by default, it's such a terrible experience. I don't know how others can tolerate the state of things.
I've been using http://blokada.org/ on NON-root Android with good results for all apps, not just the browser. It is just a proxy that blocks domains in the customizable blacklists. The only downsides I've seen are 1) I have to whitelist apps the need to detect if they are on mobile or wifi otherwise they cannot tell, and 2) you cannot chain/use another proxy too.
Have you tried using DNS66 as adblocker?
It's implemented as local-running VPN and doesn't require root. I'm using it since a year or so and quite happy with it.
The worst on mobile is the fake virus ads. There's a script, it's the same one they all use, which out of nowhere will change the URL to some site that spams you with messages saying "Your Android has a Virus!". Every single time it happens, I need to force close the browser. This stuff has to stop.
So does this prevent iframe hijack and pop-up types of annoying ads? They are the kinds I really really want to stop seeing. Unfortunately uBlock can only block so many.
They're going to block all the other ad blocking extensions from running on Chrome. Or cripple chromes API so they can't exist. Its only a matter of time.
If Microsoft was heavily fined for installing their own browser in their operating system, how is an advertising company like Google using their browser, which has the largest market share, to block competing ads not the same thing?!