• by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, December 8, 2015

Only in the crazy world that is digital marketing could a giant go around sneezing on all and sundry and then sell them a cold and flu remedy. But that's pretty much what we can expect in the next few months as Google prepares to launch Contributor in the UK.

The principle is simple, although the devil in the details appears to be far from worked out. The service will allow those who do not wish to view mobile display ads to contribute an unspecified sum, which will then be given to publishers that sign up for the scheme. Publisher participation means they will be recompensed for not showing ads. There are so many questions here. The most obvious is how much will consumers be expected to pay and how will publishers get compensated. Will a quality site that would usually receive healthy CPMs receive more than a clickbait destination that normally scrapes the barrel of brands looking for cheap inventory? If publishers are to be compensated, surely you can only pay them in line with the money collected from users -- or do you turn around and say the pot doesn't hold enough money and subscribers will have to chip in more?

Maybe the biggest question on most people's minds is what's in it for Google. Whenever that question is asked you know the answer is a big fat dollar sign and so UK publishers will have to see what cut Google takes for running the service. Maybe another question will be that if the search giant is so keen for publishers to make money, why does it allow ad-blocking technology to be sold in its PlayStore and why is it a simple click of a button to add it to Chrome on a desktop? By the way, the answer to this is that it can make money from these apps sales that affect display -- and it, of course, makes the vast majority of its fortunes through search.

Google's argument is that people block ads because of bad experiences with them, and so facilitating ad-blocking technology is all about consumer choice. I rather think the EU would offer the same argument back to Google about its insistence on promoting its own businesses in search boxes ahead of rivals, but there you go.

So the ultimate question is whether publishers are going to sign up to the service. With details so scant, it's hard to tell what they would be able to make a decision on. It leads to the final question. Do publishers really need it? Should the AOP in the UK, and elsewhere, not have some kind of certification programme that its members don't engage in advertising that is too intrusive. This could then form the basis of an industrywide scheme that can display a logo that they treat the consumer experience responsibly and to consume this content you need to disable your blocker. That's only fair isn't it? If there is a standard which says this type of publishing offers an acceptable reader or viewer experience, to view the content you must accept ads -- or if it's available, sign up to an ad-free subscription from the site.

I'm not sure that Google's very unclear plan is a better alternative to this potential route. If publishers go for the Contributor they will not only be handing a slice of the action over to Google and be unsure exactly how they will be compensated, they will also be handing over control to a party that has facilitated ad-blocking at a mass level.

I think kidnap specialists call it The Stockholm Syndrome, don't they -- when victims see the route of their problem as a saviour they defend? OK -- so I wouldn't go so far as to say Google are necessarily criminals in this case but they certainly appear to be part of the problem. If you like it to a classic protection racket, you couldn't really say that Google's warning shop keepers they might be at risk without protection. However, maybe they could be cast instead as the copy who allows the protection racket to go in the background and then ask the stores to be paid to intervene -- for a fee, of course.