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Using Adblock Plus to Block Ads is Legal, Rules German Court -- For the Fifth Time (arstechnica.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Using Adblock Plus to block ads on websites is legal, a German regional court has ruled. The suit, brought by the company behind the leading German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, is the fifth such case to be decided in favor of the makers of the software, who are based in Germany. The court in Munich also ruled that the "Acceptable Ads initiative," a scheme that requires larger companies to pay for their ads to be whitelisted by Adblock Plus, is acceptable under German law. "To the contrary, said the court, users have the right to block those or any ads, because no such contract exists," Adblock Plus's Ben Williams writes. "Additionally, the judge ruled that by offering publishers a way to serve ads that ad-blocking users will accept, the Acceptable Ad initiative provides them an avenue to monetize their content, and therefore is favorable, not disadvantageous, to them."
Previously, Adblock Plus's parent company Eyeo has won court cases against the German publishing giant Axel Springer, Germany television companies Pro 7/Sat 1 and RTL Interactive, and against the companies operating the Zeit Online and Handelsblatt websites.
And in the rest of the world?
That's why I stopped using Adblock Plus.
When Google did their unified login, and unified privacy policy, that was the point I started blocking adverts. You watch something on YouTube, or visit a shopping site, and you get served up ads for that product where-ever you go. "Do not track" is ignored.
Adverts became privacy invasions, and they are easy to block, so I block them. IMHO Firefox's new "block tracking items" is one of few new features in Firefox that are the right choice.
And Android is worse, a unique ID sent to Google all the time so it can track you. It's claimed to be anonymous, but its trivial for them to link it to a real identity. And its sent whether you opt in to personalized ads or not.
Why should I watch your ads if you do shit like that Google? I've already ditch Google for DuckDuckGo due to tracking.
Do you imagine that the Suddeutsche Zeitung is based anywhere other than southern Germany? They lost the suit.
If in doubt, you can browse through a VPN in Germany and block the ads there.
If as first you don't succeed, sue and sue again
It was a lawsuit between Cologne based Eyeo and Munich based Sueddeutsche. If they had fought it out as a soccer match instead in court, Sueddeutsche would have prevailed.
Acceptable ads used to mean simple text ads with maybe an image here or there. Nowadays allowing acceptable ads through means you have to deal with promotions with distracting pictures and misleading text from content farms like Taboola or Revcontent.
Fuck acceptable ads and fuck Adblock Plus. And fuck HOSTS too, you can't edit that shit without root on Android.
You should do your regular browsing while logged out from Google, and use a private window for Gmail if that's the reason you log in. I don't think that blocking ads accomplishes that separation, they can still track you.
Stock Android is fine. It's Google's proprietary extensions that are the problem. If you do a bit of research you can avoid it entirely.
I would agree that this has several things going on.
1) The german courts are ruling preferrentially in favor of german companies (surprise,it's captain obvious to the rescue)
2) The advert industry wants VERY hard to establish a precedent that advertisements are essential to modern internet services, and thus get legal protections against circumventing the distribution and display of adverts (imagine a rather loose interpretation of the various hacking laws intended to punish disruption of vital services,such as on SCADA systems, being applied to simply browsing the web,because now being forced to view ads is considered a vital part of the web infrastructure,and now is suddenly the same class of felony. EG, if you access a site supported by ads, and dont view the ads,now you can be prosecuted for "unauthorized access" as if you had exploited an insecure SQL implementation and made off with hundreds of gigs of customer data.) Which the courts in germany are absolutely correct in denying.
So, while the german court may be repeatedly finding against this horseshit for the wrong reasons, they are at least reaching the correct verdict, if a sane and sensible public resource is to be maintained.
The internet does not exist to make anyone, anywhere, money. The internet exists to facilitate the exchange of information.While the exchange of information CAN be monetized, that is not the purpose of the internet, and any legislation that attempts to frame the argument otherwise needs to be categorically denied, if a reliable public commons is to be retained.
The moment the advert industry wins this kind of victory is the day the internet dies.
It saddens me that it requires such corrupt nationalistic horseshit to make politicians reach the obviously correct position, instead of reaching it on merits and impetus of acting for the benefit of civilization in general like globally interconnected governments should be doing.
It disgusts me horribly that the members of the legal profession are willing to apply themselves to efforts to destroy the public commons for the fiduciary advantage of an oligarchy, instead of acting in a more enlightened and moral manner as a profession.
And, it disturbs me that both of those things happen with such regularity that they are not only expected to happen, but are considered normal.
seriously, how fucked up do things need to get before the world as a whole demands reforms? When the advertisers want to mandate direct thought manipulation technology, and when governments only say no when they have an economic/political interest?
The time to demand those reforms is now, not after the dystopic horror gets instituted.
The legal profession needs the equivalent of the oath of Hipocrates, with an oath to never create contracts or engage in representing clients who's actions erode the freedoms and rights of any other individual, and have it be a requirement to practice law. (no one-sided contracts being written, no professional prosecutors abusing people, etc.) The creation of an abusive contract or of seeking dangerously one-sided precedents\judgements needs to be seen with the same disgust we hold for the likes of Dr Mengele, and for the same basic reasons. The enactment of such things are crimes against all of humanity, and are thus atrocities. Claiming to do so out of obligation to represent the client is like using the "i was only following orders" defense. It should never absolve the legal professional from the atrocities they make.
Likewise, government needs to be held to the fire that it exists to serve society, and not the other way around.
And we, the people who live in this world, need to be resolute in not turning blind eyes to these problems.
You can use that EFF tool, Privacy Badger. Though, I'm finding it tends to be a little aggressive about blocking tracking cookies, and some websites don't work right. But enh, I figure if a website breaks due to it's blocking cookies, nothing of value is lost.
Yes, it's perhaps a shameless plug, but I just really like that tool.
For one, where the hell do you imagine that Süddeutsche Zeitung is located (Hint, it's not too far away from the court)? Or, for that matter, Axel Springer, Pro7/Sat1 and RTL, who, surprisingly, are all german companies. And additionally, such a one-sided court history may actually be an indicator that, I don't know, maybe nothing illegal happened?
Microsoft gets 6 free articles on the main page. Is this what slashdot is reduced to, shilling for the MICROS~1 organization?
What a pile of rubbish. If you're on Android, just install another fucking browser. But that's not really why you posted. Be honest, you're just a shill for that shitty DDG "search engine". I've news for you: You will never make money from that crappy product, it's the worst search tool available! No matter how many fake posts you and our team make about it, it's still a turd and abandoned by everyone that bothers to try it.
Remove Flash and that gets rid of all of the annoying ads from most things. There's a script called "youtube-dl" to both get to youtube without flash and to get the content you actually want without the annoying ad.
Germany, like most (no, all) countries in Europe, is a Rechtsstaat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsstaat - note the certain Germanic sound of that word), so follows the rule of law; the North-European countries in general, and the Germans in particular seem to take a particular pride in being law-abiding and care a great deal about not just the letter, but also the spirit of the law. This may be different in America - one sometimes get that impression - but we have a strong tradition for this in Nordic culture; look up as an example the concept of the Lawspeaker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawspeaker). Knowing, understanding and following the law is a part of our cultural identity, and implying that our courts are biased or corrupt is hurtful and rather insulting on a level that may surprise outsiders.
That's the absolute worst mindset to have. Whenever you talk to a "non-technical person" (it's their words, not mine) about issues such as the recent FBI v Apple case, you'll generally find a response similar to "The government can look at my stuff, I have nothing to hide". It's these people who side with the "but terrorism" argument, and end up screwing all of us. We don't need backdoors, we don't need invasions of privacy, we don't need tracking, we need strong encryption and security.
Then install Ghostery and stop being a freeloader.
This is the true "problem" being faced by the media publishers crying foul over blocking advertising but there is nothing they can do about that. Instead they are targeting the consumers by attempting to force everyone to be subjected to invasive and often dangerous advertising methods.
The large media companies want to protect their revenue by forcing people to accept adverts by law on the pages they visit. The only reason I block advertising is because they are a very popular vector for virus infection. The publishers want to monetize their content with advertising by handing over control of their advertising to third parties who sell to the highest bidder in fraction of a second auctions. Doing this means that they have little to no control over some of the content on their pages. This practice opens up legitimate websites to become targets for distributors of malware, ransomware and the like.
They want to have their cake and eat it; be completely absolved of the responsibility for the content displayed on their site but assume full responsibility for the profit generated by advertising.
No. Advertise responsibly, take control over all the content on your site, don't track my every move in an Owellian nightmare of privacy invasion and I will white list your site. I might even click an advert. Until this system of advertising delivery fundamentally changes... there's always someone else willing to offer the same type of content for free elsewhere. The media industry can't stop people from publishing their own blog or reporting on world events but they can try to lobby for laws to protect their broken revenue sources.
Well, in Germany they can try.
The folks over at BlockAdblock raise some interesting issues re the DMCA though.
It's not that adblocking is illegal. It isn't. It's totally fine to block ads.
BUT... and this is a big but... It's probably NOT legal to circumvent protective measures under the DMCA.
http://blockadblock.com/adblocking/is-adblock-plus-violating-the-dmca/
Or some other protocol that fundamentally opposes the concept of inline graphic flashy shiny things, tracking users and those much hated "Here's the thing with ad blockers" popups that appear after you've already half-read the page
Though too many are F##KING annoying and resource hungry, and should be killed with nuclear fire.
The real problem though, is the dozens of TRACKERS that usually come with these ads.
They need to die in nuclear fire as well, along with their authors.
And in the rest of the world?
Under what rationale could any court justify the hijacking of one persons private resources in order to enrich another?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
âoeThe core business of the plaintiff [Axel Springer] is to deliver ads to its visitors. Journalistic content is just a vehicle to get readers to view the ads.â
You have to admire this kind of honesty. They admit their business is to serve ads. So complaints about "journalistic integrity" can't really be made of this site (or indeed any other).
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I blocked them when they started moving. I was okay with static banners, but "Shock The Monkey" I think was what drove me block whatever I could.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Antishill shilling is still shilling.
Duck Duck Go uses the Google search engine and produces near identical results when you disable Googles user and location awareness. To say that Duck Duck Go is the worst search tool available is plain wrong.
Why does it bother you that the people behind Duck Duck Go are unlikely to make money from it? It's not your company, why stop using a search facility because it's not profitable for its owners?
The government can look at my stuff, I have nothing to hide".
Yes you do. You don't want your porn preferences to be common knowledge. Or the way you tecnhically cheated some taxes when doing some 'unofficial' work for a neighbour, or how you leaned on someone to get your son a job, or . . .
If you are conscious about Google spying on you, you shouldn't be using GMail in the first place...
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
That's a nonsensical question. The web is not a monolithic service that has a fixed cost for which its owner must be reimbursed. The web is made up of untold millions of individual sites, the vast majority of them free of charge, and its value lies in its diversity. It is not a consumer-pays web.
A few late arrivals from traditional publishing seem to think that they are special, and are asking who is going to pay for their website. Nobody! If this means that they will disappear, excellent, and good riddance. That would be exactly the desired outcome, because they don't understand the web and are trying to roll back time.
Knowing, understanding and following the law is a part of our cultural identity
And also can be very dangerous, knowing when to break the law should also have a place in any cultural identity. For the nordic countries it is mainly about language. Germanic languages are generally very precise, unlike English which can be very open to interpretation. If you ever want water tight laws write them in German first. However there I believe lies the problem, it is very easy to blindly trust what is written in German as it always appears logical and fool proof. That is not to say that German law is bad, in fact it is better than most English speaking countries. In English we open ourselves up to many interpretations making it easier for law to be abused, it is not the ideal scenario and there have been lots of *small* abuses of power everywhere. What goes on in the U.S. in law is mind boggling for most other nations, as it is quite obvious. However when germanic laws get abused it becomes quickly catastrophic as the abuse is initially hard to see for the regular people to stop it. But in some ways in English countries, it is kind of to the same end, we start to become numb to all the *small* abuses and the next thing that happens is that we start wondering where all our rights went. The slow boiling frog, so to speak.
You euronazi never change, do you? Once a nazi, always a nazi.
Though before calling them all "Nazi's" the German people are very aware of this issue and are trying as hard as they can not to repeat history, this I don't doubt, shame is very powerful and is also a part of their culture now. So don't be so quick to outlet your naïvety/ignorance/hatred on the faults of previous generations of cultures you do not fully understand.
I don't use ad blocking apps, I feel it does hurt smaller web sites that actually need revenue from ads. Other big sites certainly don't need as much ad revenue but because they are popular sites they gladly take it. But the real solution would be ads that most could tolerate and not have user resort to ad blocking tools.
I tried ad blockers but in all actuality if you using them to speed web page loading. They actually do worse at that than actually letting the ads load. So if speeds your motivation I think in some cases the ad blockers are not the solution. For me I am less inclined to visit a site with annoying ads, but most of the time I don't find them intrusive enough to be a problem. I just ignore them.
I get the idea that these rash of nutso anonymous posts the last few weeks are all the work of the same person. They all have the same voice and have the same warped view of racists. Actual racists don't think this way. The fact that people reply seriously is just dumb, but I suppose someone needs to pretend that people think like this and change every topic to America.
Ah, to be young and naive again...
I started blocking them when they were called banners. I would block them anywhere if I had the chance. Be it on websites, on the front of my screen, in magazines, on the street, as a logo or on my underwear.
To quote Banksy:
People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply youâ(TM)re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. Itâ(TM)s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially donâ(TM)t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, donâ(TM)t even start asking for theirs.
-- Banksy
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Hence not only the letter, but the spirit of the law.
When you know that the spirit of the law is important, you will also know that the written law is NOT fool proof and never will be. Understanding this is good.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
There was a web before ads, and there will always be a web despite ad-block.
There are people who will allow ads, and there are people who won't. There is no absolute extreme.
The solution is to create an alternative to ads which can be used by people who block them but are open to alternatives that
don't include endangering their computers as ads do (ad domain hijacking, code injection, no site is impervious to this, and no site can respond before damage is done).
The alternatives range from custom merchandise by the site owner, to donations systems with a server upkeep bar, to creating YouTube channels and similar as a support line, to hundreds of others.
These alternatives are called adaptation and support. They are business 101. Other forms of support come from job income (people who make sites as a hobby, rather than the main business model).
If a person can't manage the income/maintenance ratio without evolving and adapting, or cutting to meet the line, they deserve what's coming to them.
Those people who wish to solely rely on ads while being anti-adblock, are people who haven't taken a single Business and management course.
People who thus lack education yet take an anti-adblock stance, deserve to fail if the situation happens.
The talks of ethics and morals and guilt-tripping that anti-adblocking people make, yet don't think about the above points beforehand: Irrelevant and a laughingstock in Business and Management.
The site owner who has an open site is the one that has to beg the users, because the site owners are replaceable and expendable goods. The content/goods will always be in supply no matter how many sites shut down, because others will open (and already exist) to replace them, and will learn from the aforementioned's mistakes.
The only situation where a user begs the site owner, is paywall. Don't like making a paywall? Then you affirm that users are more important than yourself and that it's your own fault for doing something wrong if user's aren't paying back. Reflect on yourself instead of guilt-tripping users due to your inflated ego and unwarranted self-importance. Even though you have no importance since you are an expendable site.
Point being: As with the cable and TV companies, adapt to the technological advancements without alienating customers, or die crying about morals and ethics in your own pool of piss because you are compensating with moralism for your lack in skills and management.
knowing when to defy the law
Just fixed that for myself, when law is broken you don't have to break it, just defy it.
But you are right, spirit of law is important, particularily when the legalese is broad.
However the 'spirit of law' is also open to interpretation, so it is also not perfect, it depends on who is determining the spirit.
In UK law they have a definition of what a reasonable thinking person is: "The man on the Clapham omnibus"
I doubt very much today you could find this hypothetical person sitting at the back of U.K. public transport or anywhere for that matter. When the spirit of law is determined using antiquated hypothetical models it becomes not very applicable to the average person of today.
That part and parcel of the point I was making AC...
I dont care if it's illegal, I'm going to continue doing it for my own protection. Until Scumbag website owners get off their lazy asses and vet the ad's themselves and self host, I'm blocking them.
Because....America!
I know there are no hard rules for when something can be called a tradition, but even as late as 1800 German law was a very piecemeal and arbitrary affair. The process to change this was a very hard one, where reformers had to fight tooth and nail against local magistrates and judges, and it would take a century before something resembling the current state of affairs was reached.
Furthermore, the process of judicial reform in Germany was very much a product of the Renaissance and of the French Revolution, and hence the primary inspiration and foundation of German law is Roman law. It's structure has been adapted to German society, and the particular statutes are different of course, but it forms the basis of the entire German judicial system and judicial reform would never have happened if not for the philosophers of law who got interested in the Romans and revolutionaries who sought to emancipate the people.
Nothing about this slow process was particularly Nordic in origin, and although it is true that old Nordic culture emphasised following law and custom, there is nothing about the old Nordic ways that would evoke, to us, the concept of the rechtsstaat. In particular, proceedings were of course based on common law, not independent from the ruling power to the point that cases were often presided and decided by the local earl or petty king, violence and power of force were a always big background factor, cases were often decided through popularity contests, the concept that law should be about more abstract concepts of ethics and justice didn't exist as such, and equality of law was generally not practised.
adblock plus is better than nothing but uses tons of ram and is just too "mainstream" now.
ublock origin is the way to go. Much lighter weight, saves ram and processor, has that exclusive air about it.
ublock origin was blocking ads before blocking ads was mainstream.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Users have the right to block banners.
Websites have the right to block users who block banners.
Deal with it.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I use NoScript for Firefox. A side-effect of blocking 3rd party scripts is most advertising gets blocked out. I don't care much about ads, but I'm not going to let some random third party run scripts on my computer when I visit a web site. If the site wants to serve up static jpegs as ads, that's fine, it works, and I don't care about it.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
For the right retainer, you can find any number of lobbyists and think-tank parasites who will argue that America, Free Enterprise, and the very concept of private property itself cannot be upheld if people are allowed to control what code is executed on their computers.
Every mental gymnast has a price; and we have some very talented ones.
In the rest of the world, they view it as theft. This is why sites like Forbes tell people to go pound sand, if they want to freeload.
Was this even in doubt? I mean seriously, who the fuck gave anyone control over what plugins I install on MY computer?
To further the point the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Germany's constitutional court) is the most trusted public institution by far. Getting consistent (over several decades) approval/trusted rating of 70% and upwards [1].
Also to enforce your rights against the government you have four courts that the government can not appeal (since it has no basic rights). The lowest being the Bundesgerichtshof which is the top civil court, then you have the EU's Court of Justice and the supernational European Court of Human Rights and then the Bundesverfassungsgericht. In Germany all of their rulings are legally binding if they find a violation of basic rights.
[1] http://www.infratest-dimap.de/...
When I issued the GET request, you responded. I did not play the ad or display the ad content and did not GET request on the load for the advertising, yet your server agreed to this and I did as I wished with your permission.
Why the hell do you call that theft?
Where, for example, is the loss of your content if I don't take it? It's a funny theft when I leave stuff alone...
Looks like the German courts' one-sided ruling are favoring home grown boys
What if Adblock, the company, comes from the United States, will the German courts' ruling be similarly one-sided?
What if Adblock comes from, God forbid, China, would the German judges rule in favor of some chinks ?
This is not only insulting both to China and Germany, but it is also just plain stupid and shows you didn't even bother to read the summary. A ruling by a German court on cases between _German_ entities. You did notice who the courts ruled _against_ right? Or would you consider the following not 'home grown boys' in Germany? "German publishing giant Axel Springer, Germany television companies Pro 7/Sat 1 and RTL Interactive, and against the companies operating the Zeit Online and Handelsblatt websites."
Problem is that people get their news socially these days, e.g. via a link from a summary on Slashdot or Facebook.
But then who pays for Slashdot or Facebook, if not those sites' advertisers? And who pays for verification that it isn't a hoax, if not the advertisers on Snopes?
I already pay for the internet.
And how much of your ISP bill is your ISP remitting to site operators? Probably a lot less than cable television retransmission fees, if any at all. The only case I'm aware of where ISPs pay a site operator is ESPN3.
Perhaps where you are *now*, you've nothing to hide. But I seem to recall that people have been arrested in one country for things they said online when they were in another. Wasn't there a /. article about such a case sometime back? And what about the letter calling for Xi to resign? China's been harrassing relatives of overseas Chinese who've even just commented on its existence.
There was a link at the bottom of this page to go there, it looked interesting so I clicked on it.
Up comes the demand that I disable my adblocker.
As they say in the old country - No fucking way.
So now Wired joins Forbes and a number of other sites that are on the list at the same level as goatse or tubgirl. Having had the chance to do some browsing on another computer that allowed the whole shebang of intrusive crap the trackers and advertisers ram down our gullets, it's painfully slow - reminiscent of the days of 14.4 dialup. And worse than the last time I went bareback on the web.
And now that the Grandmas of the world are finding out that their computer can be "fixed" by blocking scripts and ads, look out. This cure is not just for geeks like me any more. Grandma net is remarkably quick and powerful. Even my wife's friends are hearing about this cool thing I installed on her laptop, and maybe Ol could install it on their computer too?
And that is what the ad/malware servers are afraid of.
For Forbes and Wired - sorry friends, your using a scorched earth policy of demanding I open up my computer to the wild world of malware you serve, in order to see your content - you can go straight to hell. Your content is no where good enough to allow me to do that.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If only there were some system in place for predicting the outcome of new court cases based on the verdicts in previous similar cases that were heard by the same court.
This is why I never browse while logged in to anything and I clear my cookies every time I close my browser. I also keep auto complete turned off. In addition, I run with noscript and will always leave google-analytics and other tracking domains blocked.
I do not need to run an ad blocker because the only ads I see are the plain-jane non scripted ones.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Don't accept any offer that isn't per pixel per minute the ad is on you monitor.
Then the site could turn it around by charging the owner of the monitor a pixel per minute rate to view the site, which rate happens to exactly match the rate that it pays the owner of the monitor to show ads, so that it all balances out.
"...hijacking..."
Sorry, no. Hijacking is not the word to be used here, no matter how strongly you may feel about ad blocking. A man has the right to filter his Internet traffic as he sees fit. This has now been codified into law several times, now again in Germany.
Even if a site features ads, those same sites have no ToS stating the ads needs to be viewed in light of accessing content. It may very well be "implicitly" implied, but a one-way assumption does not a contract make, legal, moral, otherwise.
I'm under no obligation to view that which I strongly know can have a negative impact on computers under my charge. Unless and until the ad industry cleans up their act or it becomes a federal crime to block ads, I will continue to do so both personally and here at work, where we block all ads, beacons, tracking at the network level. The bandwidth savings are pretty good, not to mention our malware complaints went down tremendously after doing so.
if they don't have a product anyone wants to pay for
I want to pay for a product: one single article that a search engine, social media friend, or other aggregator recommended to me. I just don't feel a need to pay for a large number of unrelated products on the same site by buying an all-you-can-eat subscription or a thousand page views. So how would a site operator go about letting a viewer pay for a single page, as opposed to paying for a year's access to the site? The fairly high per-transaction fees of credit cards and Bitcoin rule out their use for micropayments.
I switched to duckduckgo probably 2 years ago now, I'm a software developer and use it throughout my work day and at home and I think your characterisation indicates you've never or have only trivially used it. I wouldnt switch back to google's search now even it was free from tracking.
Also, i've switched my family and a few of my friends over too and i've not heard a single complaint.
Indeed, that would have been brilliant; alas that I am now old and cynical. All the same, I think I speak with some authority in my previous comment: I am Danish, and know the culture from within, at least from the Danish point of view - it is also worth remembering that as a Dane, I have grown up with the memory of the German occupation, so don't have particularly good reasons to love all things German. That being said - Scandinavia and Germany used to be not so much a well defined set of nations, as a large number of rather small, sovereign mini-states that were mostly identified by their common culture, which had a strong oral element to it. Hence the role of the Lawspeaker, and the significane of gathering regularly to hear the law spoken out loudly, to be memorised, interpreted and understood.
Perhaps it is difficult for others to quite accept this, but as a Dane, I feel strongly that the law is something that must feel right and fair - a good law is one that you instinctively approve of and not something you try to find ways to get around.
And in the rest of the world?
Under what rationale could any court justify the hijacking of one persons private resources in order to enrich another?
I think that's called taxes. I'm fairly certain that's applied and enforced by every 'government' in the world.
Where did Munik and Colonge as names for Muenchen and Koeln come from? It's not like the Anglicism is really even all that close to the actual name of the city.
"1) The german courts are ruling preferrentially in favor of german companies (surprise,it's captain obvious to the rescue)"
Not at all the reason of the judgement was a contractual basis. This has nothing to do with being a german company in fact the company ruled AGAINST was german.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Looks like the German courts' one-sided ruling are favoring home grown boys
Except that the guys who brought the cases are also Germans. Axel Springer, for example, is one of the largest newspaper and magazine publishers in Germany.
So, how about you get your facts straightened out and try again?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
While you bring up a valid point take a look at some of the "laws" that have been passed and must be obeyed. Manadatory GEZ for example. As a German citizen Ill do anything I can not to follow this "law".
Cologne was founded by the Romans under the name of Colonia Agrippina. That was later germanized to Koeln and francified to Cologne. Munich and München come both from the original name forum apud Munichen. At least that's the name the town has in the oldest remaining documents. Apparently, the French and English omitted the -en, and the Germans the -i- from the name.
Except I get benefits from paying taxes to the government, like fire services, schools and a militia to defend me from evil Canadians pouring across the border. I don't get benefits from being served ads, which take up space I'd rather use to read/watch content, and no share of the money exchanged in advertising comes to me. The discovery of new products and services that I will actually use is minimal to the point of being nonexistent.
French, I guess. The French call the cities Munich and Cologne too.
Here's what Wiktionary says about Cologne: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Cologne#Etymology
Germany, like most (no, all) countries in Europe, is a Rechtsstaat (...), so follows the rule of law; the North-European countries in general, and the Germans in particular seem to take a particular pride in being law-abiding and care a great deal about not just the letter, but also the spirit of the law. This may be different in America - one sometimes get that impression
We certainly argue about what the laws mean, with people adhering to their preferred interpretations, regardless of what other people are doing.
We do generally hold that "ignorance of the law is not an excuse."
However, our Supreme Court recently ruled that because a police officer had a "good faith belief" that a law was being violated, therefore, the defendant's 4th Amendment rights were not violated - despite the fact that the problem the officer observed was not a violation of the law.
So, apparently, "ignorance of the law is not an excuse" only applies to the defendant.
- but we have a strong tradition for this in Nordic culture; .... Knowing, understanding and following the law is a part of our cultural identity, and implying that our courts are biased or corrupt is hurtful and rather insulting on a level that may surprise outsiders.
In the US, implying - or out right accusing - government entities of being biased or corrupt is a time honored tradition. Generally those on the "loosing side" of a decision, action or ruling are quick to make such implications/accusations. This happened, for example, after the Marbury v. Madison ruling in 1803.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
Can addons do 16 things hosts do 4 speed, security & reliability (+ more efficiently)?
1.) Protect vs. bad sites (past ads)
2.) Protect vs. fastflux botnets + stop C&C talk
3.) Protect vs. dynamic dns botnets + stop C&C talk
4.) Protect vs. DGA botnets + stop C&C talk
5.) Protect vs. downed DNS (reliability)
6.) Protect vs. DNS redirect poisoning
7.) Protect vs. trackers
8.) Protect vs. spam
9.) Protect vs. phish
10.) Protect vs. caps
11.) Get past dns blocks
12.) Avoid dnsrequest logs
13.) Speed up surfing (adblock & hardcodes)
14.) Works on anything webbound multiplatform.
15.) EZ datacontrol
16.) Block ads more efficiently
Answer's NO on addons doing it well or @ ALL + hosts = on devices natively - not illogically inefficiently "Bolting on 'MoAr'".
(Ads on same site = rare: Advertisers don't trust webmaster click counts)
Addons = blockable by ClarityRay/BlockIQ by native browser methods: Untrue for hosts (part of IP stack).
APK
APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit http://www.bing.com/search?q=%...
* Less power/cpu/ram+ IO use vs. local DNS servers + addons w/ less security issues vs. DNS + routers. Less complex vs firewalls (needing layered filtering drivers - hosts don't + firewalls block less used IP addresses, hosts block more used host-domain names) complimenting 'em. Antivirus = reactive. Hosts = proactive, blocking infection BEFORE you get it. Gets its data from 10 reputable security community sites.
APK
P.S. - Hosts get you more speed (hardcodes + adblocks) & faster vs. addons, security (vs. bad sites/dns security issues), reliability (vs. downed/poisoned dns), & anonymity (dns requestlogs/trackers) vs. other "so-called -solutions'" w/ what you natively have. Unlike Adblock/UBlock/Ghostery, hosts != blockable by ClarityRay/BlockIQ... apk
I always consider this from the other side. As a small business owner, we have a budget of $1000 every month to advertise our business. When we spend it on website ads, we are trying our hardest to narrowly target only the people we think would like to know about our business. We don't want to blanket spam everyone (because that is a waste of money). We try all kinds of other things besides web ads too -- but the bottom line is that we are willing to spend money to tell you that we exist, and that we think you would probably be interested in our store.
From our perspective, we will often hear sentiments like "You've been here 3 years? I wish I had known about you earlier!" And all that we can do is try to figure out the best way to alert people to our presence. We are just using Google Adwords for the most part -- so we certainly aren't harvesting any tracking information or anything like that -- but we do want to target a certain gender that is interested in a certain type of activity. The opposite gender has absolutely no interest in our product at all.
I didn't always have this perspective -- at one point I hated ads as much as anyone else (well, ok, maybe not as much as some of the crazies on here). But now I actually observe ads on sites -- simply because I think "if they paid money for me to see it, then it *might* be something I'd enjoy." Those clickbait articles on facebook where you have to click 40 times to see a 10 item list -- I close those immediately once I recognize them for what they are. It also kinda creeps me out when facebook starts showing me ads for something I was looking at on Home Depot's website (and I find it silly that they do this even after I purchased the product while on the Home Depot website). But anyways...
OTOH, if your ads are fetched from multiple third parties, instead of served locally, then it's noscript, ghostery, and disconnect for you.
I can think of two ways to serve ads locally. One is to sell ad space locally, which requires each site to operate its own full-service ad sales department. Said department can prove impractical for a small site, and advertisers tend to worry more about click fraud on smaller sites that sell their own ad space. The other is to arrange for the site server to proxy the ad server, which ad networks forbid at present.
What practical means of "served locally" did you have in mind? Or is it fine if a site just chooses one third party at a time and sticks with it?
Unless you have entered into a contractual arrangement with a website, it is up to you how your browser works. If that browser does not display ads, that is up to the user. If the user wants to run a greasemonkey script, that is up to the user. If a website wishes otherwise, it needs to have users sign up to a legally enforceable contract which stipulates how they use the site. That this is too much like hard work for both users and hosts is not the users' problem. (As for copyright legislation, I do think that needs to be fixed so as to regulate distributing copies from one person to another only.)
John_Chalisque
Since I do all my ad blocking in my firewall, firewalls without ad-holes are going to be illegal soon? Gotta take that ad medicine or else ...
APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit http://www.bing.com/search?q=%...
* Less power/cpu/ram+ IO use vs. local DNS servers + addons w/ less security issues vs. DNS + routers. Less complex vs firewalls (needing layered filtering drivers - hosts don't + firewalls block less used IP addresses, hosts block more used host-domain names) complimenting 'em. Antivirus = reactive. Hosts = proactive, blocking infection BEFORE you get it. Gets its data from 10 reputable security community sites.
APK
P.S. - Hosts get you more speed (hardcodes + adblocks) & faster vs. addons, security (vs. bad sites/dns security issues), reliability (vs. downed/poisoned dns), & anonymity (dns requestlogs/trackers) vs. other "so-called -solutions'" w/ what you natively have. Unlike Adblock/UBlock/Ghostery, hosts != blockable by ClarityRay/BlockIQ... apk
Indeed. These are German companies offering German content (and fortunately German is not a language spoken in the whole world as it is not a very good one -- yes, I am a German native speaker), and the lawsuits were against a German company. This, incidentally, was clear from the beginning. These rulings are quite disfavorable to "home grown boys", but I guess some people will just rather spout their misconceptions than having a single look at readily available facts.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit http://www.bing.com/search?q=%...
* Less power/cpu/ram+ IO use vs. local DNS servers + addons w/ less security issues vs. DNS + routers. Less complex vs firewalls (needing layered filtering drivers - hosts don't + firewalls block less used IP addresses, hosts block more used host-domain names) complimenting 'em. Antivirus = reactive. Hosts = FAR more proactive, blocking infection BEFORE you get it. Gets its data from 10 reputable security community sites.
APK
P.S. - Hosts get you more speed (hardcodes + adblocks) & faster vs. addons, security (vs. bad sites/dns security issues), reliability (vs. downed/poisoned dns), & anonymity (dns requestlogs/trackers) vs. other "so-called -solutions'" w/ what you natively have. Unlike Adblock/UBlock/Ghostery, hosts != blockable by ClarityRay/BlockIQ... apk
> In UK law they have a definition of what a reasonable thinking person is: "The man on the Clapham omnibus"
Good point: this just about sums up how bizarre *English* law is. We are not talking about UK law - Scotland never bought into the whole concept of common law. And why should they? A hypothetical man on a bus in London certain does not define how Scottish law is to be applied :-)
You're using Bing? Really?
See subject, you pitiful fucking DOUCHE, & this https://www.quora.com/profile/... you pitiful fuck!
APK
P.S.=> I am MORE THAN HAPPY to squash the life out of pigs like you, get it? Good... apk