Re:Chrome will stop displaying ads that are repeatedly flagg...
by Ajedi32 on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @01:59PM
(#16369727)
Okay, yeah. Looking at it from a site developer's perspective I can see where you're coming from. In fact, I'm certain that many sites which do display Annoying Ads[1] are going to be pretty ticked off by this move.
However, I think the type of "content" Chrome is discriminating against here is pretty far removed from what most users would consider "content". They're not basing the decision on whether to block ads on a news site on the _content_ of its articles, but on the placement of its ads.
To the extent that ads can be considered "content" then yeah, Google's not being content-neutral here, but while site owners might consider ads to be "content", I suspect most users don't.
It's a pretty similar situation with Google's Safe Browsing system. While a malicious site operator might consider malware to be "content", malware is almost certainly not the sort of content the user came to the site for.
However, I think the type of "content" Chrome is discriminating against here is pretty far removed from what most users would consider "content". They're not basing the decision on whether to block ads on a news site on the _content_ of its articles, but on the placement of its ads.
To the extent that ads can be considered "content" then yeah, Google's not being content-neutral here, but while site owners might consider ads to be "content", I suspect most users don't.
It's a pretty similar situation with Google's Safe Browsing system. While a malicious site operator might consider malware to be "content", malware is almost certainly not the sort of content the user came to the site for.
[1]: https://www.betterads.org/standards/