Google has just stated that it intends to use its Chrome browser to go after websites that give visitors “abusive experiences” starting in December 2018.
Google defines abusive experiences: “An abusive experience is designed to mislead website visitors. For example, auto-redirects that take visitors to a new page without any action on their part is an abusive experience. So are ads that are designed to mislead or trick users into interacting with them.”
According to Search Engine Journal, “These ads trick users into clicking on them by pretending to be system warnings or ‘close’ buttons that do not actually close the ad. Further, some of these abusive ad experiences are used by scammers and phishing schemes to steal personal information.”
Right now it is unclear whether Google intends to punish the abusive websites in some way including penalties or blocking.
Speaking as someone who has been hijacked more than a couple of times by these types of websites I applaud the effort in dealing with this frustrating issue.
Citations
https://support.google.com/webtools/answer/7539006?hl=en
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/abusive-experience-unverified?pli=1
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/chrome-71-abusive-ads/276833/
