14 DAY TRIAL // Rumor has it that Google is actually working on a built-in ad-blocker for Chrome and, to take things a step further, may even turn it on by default for everyone.
This is a bit of a surprise, considering that Google's main source of money continues to be advertising.
Wall Street Journal reports, however, that Google plans to offer its own ad-blocker in Chrome, in order to target a specific type of ads, namely the ones that are particularly annoying. The list includes pop-overs, autoplaying audio and video, and more. For the most part, however, Google seems to seek to cater to that group of people that, even if annoyed by ads, won't seek an ad-blocker, mostly because they don't have the technical know-how to get the job done or even know that such a thing exists.
According to the report, Google isn't a big fan of the deals it has to make with third-party developers, like the people behind Adblock Plus, for instance, which requires paying a fee so they whitelist ads by companies such as Google. Basically, while Adblock Plus is one of the most popular of its type, it doesn't just whitelist "good" ads that don't bother you too much, it also takes money for allowing various ads to go around their filters.
Potentially huge impact
Implementing an ad-blocker directly into Chrome makes sense because the browser has almost half the market share. Taking this step would stop the growth of third-party options because users will stop looking for ways to block ads by installing additional extensions.
Google wouldn't be killing ads altogether. After all, that's not its intention since the thick of its money comes from this side of business. It will, however, weed out the most annoying ones, which are the ones no one wants to encounter when visiting a web page.
There is a problem, however, and it comes exactly from this particular combination - Google is an advertiser and giving the company control over what ads people can see might draw some criticism. After all, what's to stop Google from whitelisting all its ads and controlling who it blocks? Probably the company's moral compass, but that's another story.