The move is part of Google’s continued
clampdown on adverts that are intended to hoodwink users
Chrome 71, due out in December, will come
with enhanced in-built protections aimed at safeguarding users from harmful
advertising, according to a note by Google Product Manager Vivek Sekhar this past
Monday.
Using a feature called abusive sites
filtering, the incoming version of the world’s most popular web browser will remove all
(i.e. not just the offending) ads from websites with “persistent abusive experiences”.
Those practices mostly involve deceptive ads that trick users into clicking on
them by pretending to be system alerts or “close” buttons that, however, are
anything but.
Additional deceptive site practices that
Google intends to deep-six with Chrome 71 include the use of scroll bars,
buttons, links, or typically non-clickable areas that, when clicked, lead to
adverts without the user’s knowledge and can be more than “just” a nuisance.
Scammers can also deploy deceptive ads and
page elements with the aim of stealing users’ personal data, including by
duping them into divulging the data themselves. The full – and by no means
short – list of behaviors classified by Google as abusive is available
here.
The measure is another iteration in Google’s
continued efforts to banish unwelcome website behaviors. Back in November 2017, Google announced a set of protections to
block “pop-ups and new window requests from sites with certain abusive
experiences like redirecting pages”, with the protections rolled out two months
later.
Website administrators can use Google’s Abusive Experiences tool to check if their website harbors
any such offending ads. If so, they will have a 30-day grace period to put
things in order.
“Stronger protections ensure users can
interact with their intended content on the web, without abusive experiences
getting in the way,” said Sekhar.