This is all true, but what goes unsaid and is far worse is that the bad ads that Google's Chrome is blocking *can't be blocked in Google's ad server or exchange*.
So you could use nothing but Google software in monitizing your site and Google could blacklist you.
So you could use nothing but Google software in monitizing your site and Google could blacklist you.
The irony is that if you're a medium to large news site and you're reading this the first reaction you should have is: time to stop using DFP and AdX and find tools that give these controls. *Because Google does not*
There's this notion that publishers want to push shitty ad experiences on you.
We don't!
But the programmatic markets, where all the most prominent tools are made and run by Google, don't allow publishers full control.
We don't!
But the programmatic markets, where all the most prominent tools are made and run by Google, don't allow publishers full control.
Like AMP, this action falls into the category of 'things that should be done, but not by Google', because the context that Google brings is *dominance*.
We should feel deeply uncomfortable with Google dictating what the web should look and act like because they are the only ones who can hold entire companies hostage to those decisions. It's an immortal, dangerous, approach, worse because they don't understand why that's so...
They don't need to be doing this. All the problems that AMP and the Chrome ad blocker propose to solve would be better solved by:
Fixing
Their
Own
Ad Tech
And solving it that way would accrue none of the blowback or discomforting pressure on the web that their current path does
Fixing
Their
Own
Ad Tech
And solving it that way would accrue none of the blowback or discomforting pressure on the web that their current path does
It's hard to imagine any company has ever before stepped into a pitched battle with itself, having its different business verticals at war with each other, with such idiotic abandon. It's locked in a deathgrip with itself and the open web is the throat.
Dear Google, fix your own crap before holding websites accountable for the problems you are also causing.
*immoral
And it would be so easy for Google to do this. So little work to fix their exchange & ad server to stop bad ads at that level. It's ludicrous that Google engineered an entirely new JS library, altered its browser and manipulated a committee rather than add checks to their ad tech
It was true with AMP and it is true now, no one is in a better position to fix the root of the problem than Google's Ad Tech engineers. Why don't they? Seriously can the next media reporter who gets them on the phone ask?
Seriously, I will write the question for you:
Hi Google, why are you building tools into your browser to block ads you distribute through your own advertising technology? Why don't you build those restrictions at the ad server level?
Hi Google, why are you building tools into your browser to block ads you distribute through your own advertising technology? Why don't you build those restrictions at the ad server level?
I await a response! I'm genuinely curious because AMP felt evil but this feels stupid and I'm genuinely curious wtf is going on here because it's bad from almost any possible angle.
