Chrome's ad blocker will be extended to sites with "abusive experiences" in December

Google announced today that Chrome is further attacking "abusive experiences", buttons designed to intentionally mislead users and entice them to move to action on the Web. In December, with the release of Chrome 71, the browser ad blocker will reduce the revenue of sites that have still experienced these abusive experiences.

Last year, Google joined the Coalition for Better Ads, a group proposing specific standards on how the industry should improve consumer advertising. In February, Chrome started blocking ads (including those owned by or served by Google) on websites with non-compliant ads, as defined by the coalition. When a Google Chrome user accesses a page, the browser's advertising filter checks if this page belongs to a site that does not meet Better Ads standards. If this is the case, the network requests on the page are compared to a list of known URL ad templates and all matches are blocked, which prevents the display of ads on the page.

Google's strategy is simple: Use Chrome to reduce ad revenue for websites that display non-compliant ads. That said, an ad on 40 on a page may have a non-compliant ad. The goal is not to punish sites that are actually trying to run compliant ads. The coalition understands that all ads can be placed on a site, despite the rules dictated by ad networks, auction solutions, and other partners.

Cut ad revenue from sites with abusive experiences

Google now wants to use the same strategy for abusive experiences.

Earlier this year, with the release of Chrome 64, then Chrome 68, Google put a brake on abusive experiences such as pop-ups that sent users to unwanted destinations, redirects and unwanted tabs or windows.

Above: Abusive Experience: A play button on a video sends the user an unwanted download when the user clicks on it.

However, Google found that these protections did not work perfectly: more than half of the abusive experiences were still not blocked by Chrome and almost all involved harmful or misleading ads. These ads prompt users to click on them to be system warnings or contain "close" buttons that do not actually close the ad. In some cases, they may even steal personal information.

Above: Abusive experience: A close button opens unwanted pop-ups.

Google has not specified the number of sites that this crackdown will affect. The company only indicated that she saw a "small number of sites with persistent abusive experiences". This number will probably decrease by the end of Chrome 71 in December.

If you are a site owner or administrator, use the Google Search Console Abuse Report to see if your site contains abusive experiences that need to be corrected or removed. If you find one, you have 30 days to fix it before Chrome starts blocking ads on your site.