Google Chrome 71 To Crack Down On Websites With Abusive Ads

Google frowns on websites that display abusive ads. In 2017, the search engine company joined the group Coalition for Better Ads, which offers specific standards for how to improve ads for consumers.

With the release of Chrome 71 in December, the search giant will be stepping up its fight against the abusive ad problem. Ars Technica reported that the browser will block every ad on a website that shows abusive ads.

This is not the first time that Google attempted to use Chrome to address what it calls abusive experiences. Sites that contain abusive experiences cause the browser to misbehave by generating fake system messages, attempt to steal personal information, or automatically redirect users.

Earlier this year, Google cracked down on pop-ups, unwanted redirects, and unwanted windows and tabs with the release of Chrome 64 and Chrome 68.

Chrome 68 would prevent sites from opening new tabs or windows if these sites were reported to be serving abusive experiences. Google, however, apparently found out that this trick did not work well enough.

According to Venture Beat, more than half of abusive experiences were not blocked by Chrome, and most involve harmful and misleading ads.

With Chrome 71, Google will attempt to address the issue by weighing in whether or not a website contains abusive content. If the site does have abusive content, the browser will block all of the site’s ads.

Once Chrome 71 is released, site owners will have a 30 day grace period to clean up their site if it is reported for having abusive experience.

Site owners and administrators can use Google Search Console’s Abusive Experiences Report to check if their website contains abusive experiences that need to be removed or corrected.

Failure to remove these ads will cause Chrome to block every ad on the website regardless if these are abusive or not.

Google did not reveal the number of sites that will likely be affected by the crackdown. It only said that it sees a small number of sites that have persistent abusive experiences.

The number of these sites though is expected to drop from now and until the release of Chrome 71 next month.

Users have the option to turn off the filtering but most will likely leave the settings at default values, which could have a significant impact on the flagged site’s revenue.

“Google’s strategy is simple: Use Chrome to cut off ad revenue from websites that serve non-compliant ads,” Emil Protalinski of VentureBeat wrote.