Google Will Reduce Accidental Mobile Ad Clicks, With Mandatory Borders and More

Mark Wilson submits news that Google is throwing a bone to mobile users annoyed by ads that (accidentally, or accidentally-on-purpose) make it too easy to accidentally click, breaking your browsing flow, by making those ads a bit less clickable. Writes Beta News: The company is taking steps to make the 'user experience' of ads a little better. It recognizes that advertisements that get clicked accidentally don't benefit anybody. They end up irritating the clicker, and are unlikely to be of value to the company that placed the ad. With around half of ad clicks being made by mistake, Google is now taking steps to stop this from happening — great news for users advertisers alike. In all, Google is making three key changes to ads that appear on smartphones and tablets, starting off by adding an unclickable border to the outer edges of advertisements.

Comments

Re:Why doesn't Google just stop advertising malwar

[ColdWetDog]

In that case, perhaps we can sic PETA on the malware authors. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Helping out google's algorithm

[tompaulco]

Here is a helpful hint for google's algorithm to determine if the click was accidental:
If I clicked it, it was accidental.
If I did not click it, that was intentional.
The only time I ever click on an ad is when I got suckered in by a deceitful company trying to appear to be a legitimate news article. For example, I got suckered in by "New Law has Insurance Customers Fuming" headline...once. A company that has to fool people into clicking on it's links does not deserve to be in business and should have their IP blacklisted so that no one else will ever accidentally visit their site.