Technology

Google has warned site owners that its Chrome browser would drop the hammer by blocking all ads if the website harbored what the search giant called "abusive experiences."

"Starting in December 2018, Chrome 71 will remove all ads on the small number of sites with persistent abusive experiences (emphasis added)," wrote Vivek Sekhar, a product manager with Google, in a November 5 post to a company blog.

Sekhar's threat did not come out of the blue: Google gave Chrome leave to take on abusive experiences before. The browser, which has long blocked pop-up ads and more recently restricted video auto-play, this summer stopped unauthorized redirections - where clicking a link opens the destination in a new tab but nefariously opens an unwanted page in the former active tab - with July's Chrome 68. (It was unclear whether this has been enabled by default; to switch it on may still require a trip to chrome://flags and toggling the Framebusting requires same-origin or a user gesture option.)

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