Google launches subscription service to remove ads from your favorite sites

Google has unveiled a new scheme to let websites collect money from visitors without using online advertising – an industry that many resent for its reliance on the collection of personal data.

Google’s Contributor program replaces ad revenue with a monthly subscription fee: participating websites show no adverts to users paying into the scheme and in return these sites collect part of their contributions.

Well, not to the whole Web -- just to 10 Web publishers that are participating in the Contributor experiment. Under it, people pay $1 to $3 per month and see a thank-you note on websites instead of an advertisement.

"When you visit a participating website, part of your contribution goes to the creators of that site," the Google Contributor site said. "The more you contribute, the more you support the websites you visit."

The 10 publishers participating in the experiment include photo-sharing site Imgur, news satire site The Onion, tech news site Mashable and slang-explanation site Urban Dictionary.

Google Contributor is an interesting idea for a company that's funded by ad revenue, but so far, it is only an experiment. Google offered a waiting-list form to let people sign up.

The idea behind Google Contributor isn't new. Google itself has released a similar subscription service for YouTube. But some services that offer subscription models in lieu of ads, like Spofity, have come under fire for the amount of money that goes to the content creators.

According to Google the ‘experimental’ system is compatible with all major browsers and mobile apps and is being seen as a way for the internet giant to wean itself off its dependence on advertising revenues.