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German Court Rules Adblock Plus Is Legal
An anonymous reader writes: Following a four-month trial, a German court in Hamburg has ruled that the practice of blocking advertising is perfectly legitimate. Germany-based Eyeo, the company that owns Adblock Plus, has won a case against German publishers Zeit Online and Handelsblatt. These companies operate Zeit.de, Handelsblatt.com, and Wiwo.de. Their lawsuit, filed on December 3, charged that Adblock Plus should not be allowed to block ads on their websites. While the decision is undoubtedly a big win for users today, it could also set a precedent for future lawsuits against Adblock Plus and any other tool that offers similar functions. The German court has essentially declared that users are legally allowed to control what happens on their screens and on their computers while they browse the Web.
To understand that !
*People misuse the term "log-in" to a web site when they actually mean "visit the URL", but that's another rant...
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
Ad companies would love to make it illegal for you to get up and go to the bathroom while commercials play. The technology is already here that will tell our televisions when we look away. Just think of the possibilities for advertisers if they could get that data.
Some things need to be said...
I suspect the vendor response will be more along the lines of, "We've detected Ad Block on your computer. You will be unable to view content on this site while this is active." The legal decision is, IMO, the correct one. We're not in Oceania (yet) and we're still allowed to turn off our TVs or change the channel. That doesn't mean, though, that the provider of the content is required to show it to us if we choose not to pay for it in some way. Ad Block is probably going to have to get a little craftier about running in stealth mode in the future.
Slashdot comments... splitting hairs since 1997.
Serve them form your own domain. With your own cookies. Do not make them offensive in any way (Pop under, Popup, loud, require click through or interaction, ...) and most of all take responsibility when they contain malware and pay for the damage to my computer and my time.
I understand you need to make money that doesn't mean you have to treat me like dirt.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
> This is further compounded by some websites sticking up a dialog box telling me to register or "Like" them on Facebook if I want to continue browsing their content.
No loss there. It's a safe bet that it's not content of any quality if users have to be coerced into announcing that they "like" it before they see it.
I suspect the vendor response will be more along the lines of, "We've detected Ad Block on your computer. You will be unable to view content on this site while this is active."
Some already do this.
My response is always "fuck you, I'll go elsewhere then."
And the "elsewhere" where they don't do that is typically better.
I also run the EFF's Privacy Badger.
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BMO
It's those ads that most often interfere with "displaying the page as intended" in the first place. If a page doesn't load or hangs or whatever, it's usually due to a failed ad script.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
A lot of things are forbidden in Europe and we're better off for it. One day you stupid americans will learn that civilization is defined but what we forbid and not by what we allow. The more bans, the more civilized a country is. It's as simple as that.
You're kidding, right? Irony?
In my opinion we would be better off with absolutely no limits on free speech.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Media companies don't give a shit about "reaching a broader audience" if they can't show that audience ads. They don't care if you leave, in fact they welcome it. Why would they want to provide you with content for free that they normally "charge" for by including ads?
Funny you should call ads "parasites", because that's basically what you are. You want the content, you don't want to pay. That's a fair position to take, but don't get all upset when they decline to agree to your terms.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
One thing I never understood is why no one's come up with an ad blocker that still requests ads in the background, but doesn't display them (as an option).
Quite literally, everyone wins in that scenario. Advertisers get to feel like they're changing the world. Web sites are funded. We don't have to deal with advertisements.
And manufacturers/service providers are less likely to deal with the wrath of people like me who go out of our way to avoid products with offensive advertising. We won't know any better.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Tough shit. The user has indicated that they do not want to see ads. Give the user what they want or go out of business. Find a different business model.
Tough shit. I don't care what they want. If they don't give me what I want, I go somewhere else. That's the free market.
Tough shit. Expect further development of ad blocking technologies to keep up. Eventually the arms race will lead to the abandonment of ad revenue as a source of support. The advertisers and site owners did this to themselves by ratcheting up the obnoxiousness of their ads to the point where people start blocking them or staying away from their site. No sympathy.
Advertising is a blight on society. I can hardly go anywhere without someone trying to sell me car insurance, or legal assistance, or boner pills, or something else I don't want or already have. What the advertisers need to understand is that they do not have an inalienable right to shove ads in my eyeballs. If I want to ignore or block advertising, I have the right to do that. If that drives people out of business, that's fine, because other businesses that don't employ such an obnoxious business model will take up their business.
I hate advertising in all its forms. Don't like that? Go fuck yourself, I don't care what you think.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
There's a lot of people here saying what is essentially, "f*ck you" to the advertisements. But I think a lot of them don't consider what it's like for the creator in this situation. A lot of them don't charge for their content and rely upon the ads, without which they could never keep going. This is especially the case for the smaller guys who run their own channels, and they could never afford to do their hobby otherwise. You have the right to control what's on your screen, yes, but they also have the right to ask you to disable it - you are reading what they spent hours putting together. It would be like if you let a coworker look at your editor configuration, they write down some of the cool tricks you used, and then they refused to let you see theirs.
Look, all I'm saying is that if you have Adblock Plus (and who doesn't? I use it myself on occasion), please consider disabling it most of the time and saving it only for the really egregious websites. A lot of people rely on that ad money, and by not letting them receive it, you are essentially breaking your end of an implicit agreement - a lot like when your neighbor borrows your lawn mower and then refuses to replace the gas he used.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
So it's cool if I go around telling people you are a pedophile?
I wouldn't go that far. Even in the US, we have limits on free speech. However, I'd say that our limits are pretty sane. You can't spread lies about someone and expect to be able to claim "free speech" when you are sued. You can't threaten to hurt/kill people, claim "free speech", and expect to get off scot-free.
However, if you say something bad about someone ("X is a crook") and you can back it up with evidence/facts ("here's a photo of X taking a bribe"), then you can't be successfully sued for libel/slander. You can also express a wide range of political opinions so long as you stop short of advocating killing fellow citizens. (You would be fine to say "Those LIBERALS/CONSERVATIVES/DEMOCRATS/REPUBLICANS/CHRISTIANS/ATHEISTS/PASTAFARIANS [pick one or more] are ruining America. We would be better off without them." You just can't continue with "... and that's why I want to round them all up and shoot them to death.")
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Firefox is becoming less and less stable.
What the hell are you talking about? Firefox has become more stable; I abandoned FF several years ago because it crashed so often, and switched to Chromium; in the last year, I've switched back because Chromium is such a memory hog and crashes so much, and Firefox isn't and doesn't. FF is better with memory, and rarely crashes (esp. compared to Chromium). It's not perfect by any means, but it's a lot better than it used to be.
When was the last time you used Firefox?
That said, I also switched from AdBlock Plus to uBlock, and that's helped a lot too. ABP is a hog. (But I switched back to FF well before I dumped ABP.)
There's a place for obscenities and your reply was exactly that place. To reply appropriately: Fuckin' A!
Yes. Those things are limits on free speech. The OP want's "absolutely no limits" on it.