• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, January 9, 2019

The industry group Coalition for Better Ads, which aims to stem ad blocking by pushing companies to avoid formats that are considered problematic, plans to expand its initiative worldwide.

The organization says that since March 2017, many companies in North America and Europe have followed the group's voluntary standards regarding online ad formats. The coalition now plans to meet with trade associations and companies in other parts of the world, to encourage them to adopt the standards.

Among other efforts, coalition representatives presented at IAB Brazil’s AdTech and Data Conference in September and attended IAB’s Global Summit in London late last year. Representatives also recently visited association and company executives in Japan, India and Indonesia.
Last February, Google's Chrome browser began filtering out ads in North America and Europe that don't comply with the coalition's standards.

Google said on Wednesday that it plans to expand that filtering worldwide in July.

The Coalition maintains an online register of publishers that have promised to avoid the most “disruptive” types of ads. To date, around 70 publishers from 27 countries have certified that they comply with the standards.

The program plans to begin assessing compliance in regions outside of North America and Europe after May 9.