You can trust a burglar to install a security system that will keep other burglars out, but you can be 100% sure that you will not be able to keep the installer out, in fact you are just about giving them an incentive to rob you blind at the first opportunity. Google will do an amazing job at blocking competitor ads.

Then why did the competitors, including the top competitors in terms of revenue, sign up to be part of the consortium?

I see this as a shot at piracy sites, if anything. Since they cannot join reputable ad networks, they join disreputable ones that don't even try to police their ads or publishers and show shady and misleading ads. Those will all be blocked now, choking the piracy sites of revenue.

The primary beneficiaries are content producers. The secondary beneficiaries are Internet companies that are hit by botnets.

> Then why did the competitors, including the top competitors in terms of revenue, sign up to be part of the consortium?

They don't have a choice. Either they join the cartel or they watch their ads vanish entirely[0] from the most popular browser.

I don't think this is an either/or thing. Google is doing something with positive externalities. But it also so happens to align 100% with their commercial interests.

[0] edit: "entirely" is hyperbole. But even a low percentage is worth giving in for.

> Either they join the cartel or they watch their ads vanish entirely[0] from the most popular browser.

Why do you think they didn't want to join? They get the same benefits as Google and the Internet at large. I'm having a hard time following your logic for why this is Google attacking its competitors if its competitors are unaffected by the change.

There is is word for it - oligopoly

But when you're robbed you'll know exactly who did it. I expect Google will try very hard to appear to treat all ads equally, hence the focus on all ads on particular sites, instead of trying to make judgements on individual ads. If they don't, they will quickly suffer massive fines that actually hurt their bottom line every year, as well as lawsuits from competitors that they stand a chance of actually losing.

The ADT company hired and trusted convicted serial killer Dennis Rader to install alarms. He'd then defeat the alarms and go in to the houses to bind, torture, and kill his victims.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader#Early_life_and_ca...

Your analogy is good. Google and Chrome Adblocker is just like ADT and the "BTK Killer".

As far as most people were concerned, Dennis Rader was a normal member of community. I used to live in Wichita where he operated. One of my coworkers had had dinner with them because they went to the same church as him.

His wife kids didn't know, nobody knew.

Did he have a criminal record when ADT hired him?

No. In fact, Rader was once considered to be a pillar of the community.