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Adblock Plus Victorious Again In Court
New submitter Xochil writes: AdBlock Plus has successfully defended itself in court for the second time in five weeks. The Munich Regional Court ruled against media companies ProSiebenSat1 and IP Deutschland. The companies sued Eyeo, the company behind Adblock Plus, asking the court to ban the distribution of the free ad-blocking software, saying it hurts their ad-based business model. An Eyeo release says in part: "We are elated at the decision reached today by the Munich court, which is another win for every internet user. It confirms each individual’s right to block annoying ads, protect their privacy and, by extension, determine his or her own internet experience. This time it also confirms the legitimacy of our Acceptable Ads initiative as a compromise in the often contentious and rarely progressive world of online advertising."
"Today is also a sad day for internet users, because AdBlock Plus jeopardizes the financing options for all free internet sites. We still feel it is inadmissible under copyright and antitrust laws, and it is an anti-competitive attack on media diversity and freedom of the press. Therefore, we will review the options for appeal and further legal action against Eyeo.”
I don't think they understand that they are free to publish whatever they want... but we are also free to ignore/cut up/block the stuff we don't want. I call that a win. If it means a bunch of publishers go out of business and the internet gets less commercial, I'm fine with that too.
1: Stop using them to track users, you want to show a text ad, fine Ill deal with it, but if you're going to track me across multiple sites then I block you.
2: Make them text based, or at least no flashing colors etc..
3: Stop using Flash, which is another attack vector
4: Stop selling our personal information to every single spammer that offers you money for our info
5: Make the site more than 75% content to 25% ads
6: Secure your servers so we aren't being attacked from letting your ads through
When you accomplish those simple things you may see a difference in the amount of people letting ads through, till then, go to hell.
10. No more "32 top reasons to click through 32 pages of eights ads" - type BS; thank you so much in advance.
Requiem for the American Dream
Actually their acceptable ads (which you can turn off with a single checkbox and they even offer the option on first install) is exactly what I've been saying for years should be the only ads allowed due to security concerns,
1.- Static only (no Flash or Java, but they go one further and put no animations like GIFs), 2.- No "pop up/ under" ads blocking content (which is more likely to cause the user to click to try to move it, thus making it a good target for a malware link) but again they go farther with actual size requirements, 3.- Ads have to be clearly labeled as ads (so no fake security dialog boxes or images the user might click on concealing ad links) and yet again they go farther than I came up with by rules for borders and a bunch of rules for hyperlinks.
So as long as advertisers follow these rules? The odds of an ad based malware attack drops right off the chart. All your usual threats, third party flash, fake links, etc are removed from the equation. Most of us have no problem with the sites we use having a few adverts to stay afloat but what we DO very much have a problem with is putting users at risk for the profit of website owners. the ABP acceptable ads rules seems to address this concern and goes above and beyond so ATM I can really find no fault with the system.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.