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Yahoo Denies Ad-blocking Users Access To Email (washingtonpost.com)
JoeyRox writes: Yahoo is running an A/B test that blocks access to Yahoo email if the site detects that the user is running an Ad Blocker. Yahoo says that this a trial rather than a new policy, effecting only a "small number" of users. Those lucky users are greeted with a message that reads "Please disable Ad Blocker to continue using Yahoo Mail." Regarding the legality of the move, "Yahoo is well within its rights to do so," said Ansel Halliburton an attorney at Kronenberger Rosenfeld who specializes in Internet law.
1) Disable AdBlock
2) Login
3) Set forwarding to other email account / Send all mails to that address
4) Logout
5) Enable AdBlock
Sorry, no profit, but the end result will be satisfactory.
This is going to go over like a lead balloon. I know if I was greeted with that on a site I use, I would then start the process of going elsewhere.
They would do far better to just shift to some other way to display the ads using local servers instead of ad networks, if they really find all of this necessary. Oh, and in the process, make sure the ads are small, load quickly, don't pop up or under or on a time delay, have no animation and no sound, and no mouse over effects. Inotherwords, go back to the way things were before people found it necessary to block ads.
It can't. We now start to develop blockers that accept the connection to the ad site, slurp the data, run the JavaCrap that comes with it in a different sandbox with CoW access to the page sandbox, in case the ad wants to cross-check something, and show a blank frame where the ad should show. Arms race continues, problem solved for now.
Firstly, not all versions of Yahoo e-mail are free. (although they might be slowly shedding their paid offerings...)
Secondly, a dismissive, "Why would there be any question about legality?" is something one only hears from people with no legal experience. The law isn't a codification of what you think the rules should be, and so many people have met their commercial demise by starting with the assumption that something is "surely" ok to do.
Thridly, not every country subscribes to the neoliberal mindset, thankfully. It may be that some legal systems do not accept that someone can require consumption of promotional content except in regulated circumstances. This might especially be the case for services which have more than entertainment value and where loss of service might cause difficulty, e.g. having to change an e-mail address. This is why one asks legal experts rather than /.
Soon the ad blockers are going to be simulating that the user saw the ad without actually showing it.
It's simple misdirection - people are asking, "is Yahoo being a dick?" and Yahoo is answering, "it's perfectly legal." Which has nothing to do with the question but many people will fall for it because they [somehow, still, inexplicably, despite all evidence to the contrary] still equate legality with ethics.
n.b. It may be the users who are being the dicks, wanting something for nothing (#include malvertising.h), but that's not the question here.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)