Have you ever accidentally entered your phone number on a mobile website and been charged for a subscription service you didn't want? Google wants to prevent this from happening in the future.
Chrome 71, slated for release in December, will show a warning before displaying subscription pages that don't make it clear they will bill you if you enter your information, Google announced Thursday.
"The page ahead may try to charge you money," the warning will read. "These charges could be one-time or recurring and may not be obvious."
Users will have the option to go back or proceed to the site.
Chrome will display this warning if it detects that billing or subscription information is absent or hidden, users can't easily see the costs they'll incur before accepting the terms, or if the fee structure is hard to understand. If, for instance, a site displays the billing information in gray text over a gray background, that's a no-no.
Google says "millions" of Chrome users encounter these shady pages every month.
"Picture this: Andrea is browsing the web on a mobile connection to access a gaming page and they're presented with a page that asks them for their mobile phone details," a post on the Chromium blog reads. "They fill in the blanks with their mobile number and press Continue, and get access to the content. The next month, the phone bill arrives and they see a charge they were not expecting."
The focus appears to be mobile sites, but Google says warnings will appear "on Chrome mobile, Chrome desktop and Android's WebView" if Chrome detects pages that don't provide sufficient billing information.
Webmasters should adhere to Google's new mobile billing charges best practices to avoid having their sites flagged.