• MarTech Today
  • Sections
    • Ads
    • Marketing
    • Content
    • Sales
    • Analytics
    • Management
    • Resources
    • More
    • Home
  • Follow Us
    • Follow
  • MarTech Today
  • Ads
  • Marketing
  • Content
  • Sales
  • Analytics
  • Mgmt
  • Resources
  • More
  • Events
    • Follow
  • SUBSCRIBE

MarTech Today

MarTech Today
  • Ads
  • Marketing
  • Content
  • Sales
  • Analytics
  • Management
  • Resources
  • More
  • Events
  • Newsletters
  • Home
Martech: Advertising

Google Chrome API changes may disable most ad blockers

The company says the changes are about page speed, security and user privacy; critics are more cynical about Google's motives.

Greg Sterling on January 23, 2019 at 2:59 pm
  • More

According to multiple reports, Google is readying changes to Chromium, which is the software behind the Chrome browser and soon Microsoft Edge. The discussion and issues are relatively technical and apply to Chrome extensions generally; however, one practical impact would be to disable most ad blockers.

Why Google has proposed the change. Google first discussed the proposed changes in a late 2018 blog post. It said then that the platform changes “aim to create stronger security, privacy, and performance guarantees.” They will include “more narrowly-scoped and declarative APIs, to decrease the need for overly-broad access and enable more performant implementation by the browser, while preserving important functionality.”

In plain English, Google believes these changes are needed to speed up page load times and make the browser more secure because extensions can both slow down pages and be malicious.

Google also provided the following statement to us in email: “These changes are in the design process, as mentioned in Manifest v3 and the Chromium bug. We want to make sure all fundamental use cases are still possible with these changes and are working with extension developers to make sure their extensions continue to work while optimizing the extensions platform and better protecting our users.”

What the critics are saying. Some developers have expressed alarm about the impact of the changes on ad blocking and content filtering capabilities of Chrome extensions. Raymond Hill, a developer who has been widely quoted, argues that the changes will kill his uBlock Origin and uMatrix extensions. He says that the Manifest v3 proposal will take control away from users: “Extensions act on behalf of users, they add capabilities to a user agent, and deprecating the blocking ability of the webRequest API will essentially decrease the level of user agency in Chromium, to the benefit of web sites which obviously would be happy to have the last word in what resources their pages can fetch/execute/render.”

Not all ad blockers will reportedly be disabled. The filtering capabilities behind Adblock Plus will apparently survive. Adblock Plus allows third parties to pay to enable their ads to bypass blocking. Among those paying Adblock Plus for whitelist access are Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others.

Google itself blocks ads in Chrome that don’t conform to the Coalition for Better Ads‘ standards.

Why you should care. While it’s still possible that Google will modify its decision after objections from developers, it appears that some popular ad blockers will soon no longer work. But because this is a relatively obscure debate within the developer community it may have little impact on user behavior (e.g., browser switching). Marketers will undoubtedly welcome the move to limit ad blocking, but it could reinforce the perception that Google is prioritizing revenue over the user experience.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech Today. Staff authors are listed here.



About The Author

Greg Sterling
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

Related Topics

Channel: Martech: AdvertisingDisplay Advertising & MartechDisplay Advertising: Ad Blocking

Subscribe to receive daily martech news and expert insights. See terms.


We're listening.

Have something to say about this article? Share it with us on Facebook and Twitter.

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.
See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

MarTech 2021: March 16-17

MarTech 2021: Sept. 14-15

MarTech 2020: Watch On-Demand

×

Attend MarTech - Click Here


Learn More About Our MarTech Events

White Papers

  • The State of Local Marketing Report 2020-2021
  • Quality CRM Data: The Key to Delivering Great Customer Experiences
  • How the Microsoft Search Network Can Maximize Your Search Campaigns
  • The Marketer’s Playbook for Customer Acquisition
  • How To Optimize SEO With UGC
See More Whitepapers

Webinars

  • How to Avoid the Digital Transformation Trap
  • How to Build a Marketing System of Record
  • Meet BIMI: The brand-boosting email security marketers must have for 2021
See More Webinars

Research Reports

  • Local Marketing Solutions for Multi-Location Businesses
  • Enterprise Digital Asset Management Platforms
  • Identity Resolution Platforms
  • Customer Data Platforms
  • B2B Marketing Automation Platforms
  • Call Analytics Platforms
See More Research

Receive daily martech news and analysis.
Martech Today
Download the Martech Today app on iTunes
Download the Martech Today App on Google Play

Channels

  • Advertising
  • Marketing
  • Content
  • Social
  • Commerce
  • Sales
  • Analytics
  • Management
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • SMX

Resources

  • White Papers
  • Research
  • Webinars
  • MarTech Conference

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff
  • Connect With Us

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • iOS App
  • Google Play

© 2021 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Your privacy means the world to us. We share your personal information only when you give us explicit permission to do so, and confirm we have your permission each time. Learn more by viewing our privacy policy.Ok