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.

Comments

Re:There are no acceptable ads

[religionofpeas]

AdBlock plus shows you the acceptable ads by default, but it has an option to block them anyway.

Re:There are no acceptable ads

[danbob999]

Still.. no one seems to have answered the fundamental question of who is going to pay for the web.

That fundamental question has been answered long ago. Most web sites are crap. I couldn't care less if they die. Web sites survive because they sell something and/or make a commission (Amazon, eBay) or because they help selling (Samsung, your bank). Some web sites are just fine with being run for free or with donations (blogs, wikipedia).

In the end, it's not my problem if I block ads and you don't. Just like it's not my problem if you watch TV commercials (without mute or fast-forward) and stop to read every time you see an ad when driving your car. In the end advertisers are going to make more money with you than with me and there is nothing wrong with it. Advertisers never had a guaranteed return on their investment.

Wired as well

[Ol Olsoc]

I just added Wired to my I will never see again list, along with Forbes.

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.

Re:There are no acceptable ads

[yoshi_mon]

uBlock actually seems to be coded a bit better. I've noticed that with it installed on my desktop, in Firefox, my browsing is snappier. And for sure on my mobile device using uBlock, Firefox mobile on an Android, it is much better than Adblock.

I personally did not like the idea of the white-list and the philosophy behind it. However that did not stop me from using Adblock and just toggling the white-list off. But since uBlock is faster I've switched to it. Finally some options when it comes to picking apps/add-ons is always good too.