Complete Story
06/21/2017
Browser battle: Apple, Google serious about combatting ‘advertising pollution’
Next year, will see a major offensive from Google and Apple against the worse parts of the advertising world. It will be tricky for Google, bound to appear as judge and jury. Expect many casualties. But the entire ecosystem will benefit from these initiatives.
To put it bluntly, the ad community has less than a year to clean up its mess before browsers take matters in their own hands.
In early 2018, Chrome and Safari, which together achieve a 68% worldwide market share for browsers, will deploy major features aimed at restoring a decent user experience.
Last week at its 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced that the next version of Safari will let users block auto-play video (technical details from Apple here). The move will eliminate a major annoyance: you scroll through a page and suddenly a promotional video starts at full volume. We all hate this, but intermediaries continue to sell the feature, extolling maximum visibility—and monetization. Always hungry for short-term revenue, and indifferent to user frustration, many publishers jumped at the autoplay opportunity.
The other big announcement last week is Apple’s plan to block advertisers’ ability to track users from one site to another (details here). Called “retargeting,” the tracking feature is a powerful booster for advertisers. As an example, you search the web for a pair of running shoes, spending time on various e-tailer sites. This creates a kind of footprint, no pun, and, for several weeks, almost anywhere you go, you’re bombarded by ads for sneakers—even if you actually did buy a pair—because the system has no way to know if and when you completed the transaction. This is one of the most potent boosts for ad blockers.
