Google Step in to Save Facebook from Ad Blocker

Google CEO Sundar Pichai

June 4, 2017, #Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed plans by the company to release a new technology that will come with its Google Chrome, the most popular browser used both by desktop and mobile devices, which will block adverts that are considered as most annoying. This is not unconnected with the Adblocker War raging between Adblocker owner, Eyeo and Facebook which climaxed in August 2016.

It was on August 12, 2016 that news filtered out that Adblock Plus was blocking both posts and ads, most of which belonged to Facebook. This prompted swift reaction from #Facebook, immediately releasing to the public that it has written a code to unblock #AdBlocker Plus, and that this code will remove all ads blockers in its News Feed.

Two days later, Eyeo also released a 'workaround' filter upgrade of its Adblock Plus software which unblocks and then reblock Facebook's unblocker. The tussle between Facebook and Eyeo became a case of who is better at Ads Blocking or Unblocking. This reaction and counter-reaction increased the tension between these two Internet stakeholders.

The adblocker war which started with #Eyeo’s ad blocker freeware, allowed computer users to block pop-up ads from displaying on their systems, sent a rippling reaction from publishers and advertisers who were affected the most. Facebook, the social media giant, with about two billion active users worldwide, was impacted more, as users of Eyeo’s ad blocker software blocked most gFacebook pop-up ads considered as annoying, making the company to lose revenue from ad sales.

The new technology by Google, to be known as “The Ad Experience Report,” is a tool that publishers will use to find out if their ads are rated as “annoying experiences.” The tool comes with features that will score a publisher’s site and alert them of the status of their adverts.

In addition, this new technology will provide publishers with the option of disabling ad blocking software installed by individual on their private systems which prevent ads rated as “not annoying experiences,” from running. This new Google Chrome feature will have effect on the entire digital advertising industry.

Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior VP of Ads and Commerce at Google, in an interview with Ad Age, said, "they realized solutions like ad blockers punish everybody, including publishers who develop great content and are thoughtful about the ad experience they put on their site;" and "what's scary, is ad blocking has been a big problem on desktop and has been a big problem for the last few years."

This buttresses the fact of the lingering temperament created by ad blockers and the content curators and publishers, and in other to resolve the bitterness that ensued between computer users, advertisers and ad blocker companies, and to slow down the use of ad blocker software, was the reason behind this new technology, which was introduced by a consortium of companies under the aegis of Coalition for Better Ads, which include Google, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, WPP’s GroupM, Facebook, Thomson Reuters, The Washington Post as well as the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Association of National Advertisers.

Mr. Ramaswamy, also thinks that getting ads right is very important to the future for the internet. “We love the sources of information that makes the internet great," he said. I am quite optimistic that this new tool by Googles will create a level plain field and sanitize the Internet once again.