Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) recently removed Samsung’s Ad blocker just a few days after the app was launched on Play Store.
The ad that is known as Adblock Fast was created by South Korean tech firm, Rocketship Apps and was launched through a partnership with Samsung. The ad blocker was included in the mobile browser on Samsung devices. Therefore, Samsung phones with the browser would easily be able to download the app.
Brian Kennish, developer at Rocketship Apps, stated that he received an email from Google about the application. The email stated that Google brought down Adblock Fast after a careful review where it was found that the App goes against section 4.4 of the developer distribution contract.
The Ad blocking app had received more than 50,000 downloads before Google took it down. The app will most likely not see the light of day again. Even though the app only works with Samsung’s browser, it is not available on Samsung’s app store. Adblock Fast is also not the first Ad blocking application that Google has disabled. One such example is Adblock Plus which was pulled down in 2013, but returned in 2015 and is still available.
Google removed Adblock Fast because the app existed within its own self-contained browser. There are a lot of questions behind Google’s relationship with Samsung and how the ad block situation affects the two firms. So far it is clear that Google does not want Samsung or any other firm to tamper with its income generating activities.
Google released a statement saying that it does not comment on specific applications, but its policies aim to provide the best experience for developers and users. Samsung is yet to make a statement about the matter.
Ads are not only important to Google as a source of revenue; they also present opportunities for other businesses to expand the market for their product to the world. Other ad revenue firms also depend a lot on ads and ad blockers would, therefore, be detrimental to their business.
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