Google Reportedly Planning Built-In Ad-Blocker For Chrome

One of the major wars going on right now is the one between advertisers and consumers. While advertisements help pay for much of the content on the web, consumers are often annoyed by obtrusive ads. This has led to the rise of ad-blockers which have dramatically cut down on web revenue. In what appears to be a move to get ahead of the curve, Google is reportedly developing a built-in ad-blocker for Chrome.

As the preeminent internet advertising firm, it comes as a bit of surprise that Google is developing an ad-blocker. Given that Chrome is the most popular browser around, a built-in ad-blocker would appear to hurt them more than anything else. The key, however, comes in how this new ad-blocker is implemented. What Google is hoping to do is to seize control of the ad-blocking industry and steer it’s development to be more favourable to advertisers.

With current ad-blockers, users have a lot of choices when it comes to blocking ads, with the ability to block all ads or just the more annoying ones. However, some ad-blockers allow advertisers to be whitelisted provided they show only unobtrusive ads and pay a fee. Google appears to be taking this method, with their implementation blocking “bad ads” while allowing ads which are approved by the Coalition for Better Ads, a group to which Google and Facebook among others belong to.

The hope it seems is that by bundling in their ad-blocker into Chrome, users won’t go out to grab a third party ad-blocker. After all, if the built-in implementation is good enough, why bother with the hassle of getting a third party one. Chrome has also been limiting the ability to install add-ons outside of the Web Store so Google could also ban third party ad-blockers as well. The key point is if users are satisfied with their web browsing experience, they won’t feel the need to go nuclear and block all ads.