Pay to Remove Ads With Google Contributor

Want an ad-free Web experience? Now you can, via Google Contributor, a pilot program that lets people donate money to rid certain sites of advertising.

Marketed as "an experiment in additional ways to fund the Web," Contributor requires a small monthly fee for you to visit participating sites without the hassle of public notices.

Google is rolling out the new service with 10 initial publishing partners, including Urban Dictionary, The Onion, WikiHow, Imgur, Mashable, and Science Daily.

You choose whether to pay $1, $2, or $3 per month, which is collected through an accompanying Google payment account, then distributed to the specific sites you visit; Google also takes a cut of the funds

In return for your donation, you'll find a thank-you message (often accompanied by a pixel pattern) in place of a Google ad. On some mobile sites, ads may disappear altogether, Gigaom reported.

For now, you can sign up online to join the waitlist and receive an emailed invite when a spot opens up.

Those early adopters who already have an invite code can get started surfing a sometimes ad-free Web.

This move, which Google told Gigaom is an example of the company's attempts to help Web publishers and content providers better monetize their readership, is turning a lot of heads. It's likely to take a bite out of Google's ad impressions, and may, in the end, prove that people actually prefer conspicuous advertisements to paying for service.

Google did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment.

In June, Google-owned YouTube took a similar approach when it rolled out a fan funding process, by which interested viewers could donate money to creators whose videos they found especially compelling. "YouTube Fan Funding" is still in beta mode, but interested users can sign up online.