You’ve got to hand it to Google. All the conspiracy theories apart, I concede they’re not evil.

Look at Mr Sridhar Ramaswamy, senior VP of Ads & Commerce. He’s taking a frank look at ads and ad-blocking, and, of course, the fact that a lot of the Big G’s money comes from ads.

He’s acting or saying nothing like MS. He’s actually saying — via theinternet.co.in — that ad blocking is “first and foremost a user problem;  that it’s happening because users have ads that slow down their pages.” That this is an especially bad problem on mobile.

What would you expect? Google can easily block ad-blockers, and even create ad-blocker-blockers, and in fact, they can do anything they want to ensure you see ads. OR ELSE!

But look at the humility here. Mobile is getting more popular, people are having a hard time, and Google should do something — is what he’s saying. This is honesty at its best — the kind I haven’t seen the past couple of years from anyone in Apple, MS, FB, or anywhere else.

Sorry, TechCrunch, for lifting three entire lines: “The industry has to do a better job of policing itself and that a solution — whatever that may be — can’t just be a Google solution, because only an industry-wide solution will have the necessary credibility. ‘This has to be seen as a fair industry standard rather than something Google is pushing.’”

As a last word, Mr Ramaswamy went into something we reported last week: Adblock Plus and its relatives. “Maybe you would think differently about paying a few cents for every article you read.” “The health of the Internet... depends on enabling more non-ad monetization options for publishers.”

That’s what The Pirate says.

Tags : Google, adblock plus, Sridhar Ramaswamy