Google is going to have some major conflicts of interest pretty soon. They recently released a new web browser, Google Chrome, and will soon have to decide between doing no evil, and losing major profits.
Chrome is open-source, just like Firefox, meaning that anyone can see exactly how it works, and anyone will soon be able to create add-ons for Chrome to make it better. Thats when Google will have to make a big decision:
What will Google do when someone creates an Add-On for Chrome that removes Ads?
Google makes ALL of its quarterly net income of $1.3 billion on Ads in Search Result pages, and more and more on Ads on webpages all over the web. Currently, one of the coolest extensions for Firefox is AdBlock Plus, is assuredly putting a dent in Google’s numbers. This amazing little add-on instantly removes all those annoying ads from webpages, resulting in quicker load times, and literally zero distracting banner ads. This is the third most popular add-on for Firefox, and it had been downloaded 27,452,360 times at the time of this posting!! Imagine all the people not clicking on Google Ads thanks to this Add-On.
Google has recently made changes to Youtube, Google Maps, iGoogle, and AdSense that all attempt to serve more Ads, and squeeze more money out of each of their properties. So what will Google do when someone creates an Add-On that makes all of Google’s revenue sources literally disappear for a User!?
As a side note, it would be interesting to know how much Google loses each year thanks to AdBlock Plus, it has to be more than the $110 Million that it loses yearly thanks to the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on its homepage, as Valleywag reported last year.
