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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.
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.
AdBlock plus shows you the acceptable ads by default, but it has an option to block them anyway.
You stopped using it altogether instead of just, you know, clicking three (I just checked!) times and moving the mouse a bit to disable the whitelist? I could understand if you had some other reasons why you quit with it, but quitting because disabling the whitelist was too much work for you?
This is stupid. The reasons why people hate ads is that they're often lying, they're huge, they're distracting, they're misleading, they might point to virusses. Acceptable ads to exist, they're the one that don't do any of those things. The maker of Adblock Plus has realized that not having any ads is not a solution and he's right.
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.
And there are so few who've signed up that it's unlikely you'll see any acceptable ads anyway.
I've got the "allow some non-intrusive ads" checked and I've never seen any.
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.
Yes there is. In the real world.
If you've ever watched e.g. racing, you'll notice that most of the cars have ads. Those are acceptable ads, because the advertiser pays the owner of the car for permission to put their ad on it.
Likewise, an advertiser who paid the owner of the computer / monitor to put up an ad, would be an acceptable ad. Now, before you complain that what you would be paid isn't worth it, remember that selling advertising space happens when the owner and the advertiser can agree on a price. If they don't want to pay what you demand, you simply don't have a deal. Then let me give you a hint: Real advertisers pay per square inch per minute the car is on the track. Don't accept any offer that isn't per pixel per minute the ad is on you monitor.
Now, it does happen that somebody puts an ad on a car without paying (though it happens more often with trains and bridges). Out in the real world, that's called graffiti, and the advertiser gets fined if caught.
Conclusion: Adblock should be called Graffitiblock.
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.
You must have misunderstood something, I didn't say anything about having to press buttons to block ads. I was very specifically talking about disabling the whitelist -- once it's disabled there is no practical difference between uBlock Origin or Adblock Plus, you know, and disabling the whitelist is a one-time operation that literally takes a few seconds. If one already has Adblock Plus installed then uninstalling Adblock Plus and installing uBlock Origin is more work than just disabling the whitelist.
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.
Still.. no one seems to have answered the fundamental question of who is going to pay for the web. Or more to the point, how *you* are going to pay for the web.
Good question. Some sites are offering a option to get a subscription, but I'm not really interested in paying $5 a month (or even more) for some local newspaper subscription in a country or state that I'm only visiting this time because I followed a link in someone's Twitter post. I guess the best model is a payment per visit, but it needs to be effortless and really cheap.
I pay my ISP for the privilege of access to the "web". Expecting others to pay for yours is quite a ridiculous idea. If you don't want others to see your shit, don't put it online.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Still.. no one seems to have answered the fundamental question of who is going to pay for the web.
This question has been answered the same way many times: The web was paid for before web ads existed too. Those payment models will still work, even with perfect adblocking. Shops will have their own websites - earning money through sale of wanted items instead of sale of unwanted advertising space. Newspapers and such can use the paywall method, perhaps with "10% free so you see that their stuff is good, pay if you want the rest too". And lots of enthusiasts will still run their websites & blogs as a hobby. I couldn't care less if facebook failed due to adblocking though.
I don't believe we'll ever get perfect adblocking though. The adblockers will get better and better at tossing out:
* ads depending on cookies, especially those used by big ad agencies
* ads depending on scripting, especially standardized scripts from the big players
* ads relying on big garish images, sound or video
because those are the most annoying - and incidentally also the easiest to thwart. Ads in the form of plain text is almost impossible to detect reliably - because you need AI to fully understand text. So to be successful, some will switch to unobtrusive text ads and get through heavy blocking that way. But that will be much better - simple text is easy enough to scroll past.
The DMCA works both ways - in theory.
It is illegal to circumvent "access controls", right?
Well, an adblocker is an access control. It control access to my computer & its screen - and access to my eyes. It also controls read and write access to my cookie database. Hence, circumventing an adblocker by clever websites is a DMCA violation.
A database is a database - there is no legal difference between breaking into my cookie database and breaking into - say - a webshop.
Now, can we have the EFF or some bored rich guy take that to court? Would be interesting to watch the DMCA being used that way.
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.
If you follow that argumentation, we are back to a cable subscription model, where you have to pay for any additional channel.
Newspapers and such can use the paywall method, perhaps with "10% free so you see that their stuff is good, pay if you want the rest too"
The problem with newspapers is that there are hundreds/thousands of newspaper sites that take 90% of their content from AP/Reuters or other press agency streams. Still, they have their own website, with their own office, and their own paid people. This is a huge waste of resources to duplicate many of the same articles. So, if I was forced to pay, I'd pay for a simple automatic aggregator site that just copies the original press agency articles, and the newspaper sites would still go broke.
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.
If people aren't willing to pay a subscription, or watch ads to view your content, what makes "you" believe your content is worth while?
If there are sites that cannot continue to exist in the format they are now because you refuse to watch advertisements on their site and are not interested in paying for their content, then it obviously needs to die. That's how business works.
Imagine if I opened a brick and mortar store, and offered samples of different types of chip flavors. Similar and different, to other brands.
Now, say when I offer free samples or a free bag of chips, people are interested and or will eat them. Later I change it, and I demand that if they want a free bag of chips, they need to read the advertising on the bag. If people aren't reading the advertisements on the bag and won't visit my shop and purchase chips on their own, do I get to make it illegal that people didn't read the advertising on the bag?
No, it's probably best for me to close shop, as this business model isn't sustainable. It doesn't matter if at one point ,people did read the bags .The fact is, they don't care to do it anymore.
The problem with newspapers is that there are hundreds/thousands of newspaper sites that take 90% of their content from AP/Reuters or other press agency streams. Still, they have their own website, with their own office, and their own paid people. This is a huge waste of resources to duplicate many of the same articles. So, if I was forced to pay, I'd pay for a simple automatic aggregator site that just copies the original press agency articles, and the newspaper sites would still go broke.
You are describing businesses that we do not need. They should go out of business.
This may be a problem for them, but it's a boon for the rest of us.
sigs are hazardous to your health
Look you want it so bad then YOU pay for it. The Internet was just fine before advertising and endless September and I say it will be great again just as soon as we get rid of the advertisers and their related social media web 2.0 ilk.
Oh - and get off my lawn!
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.
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.
And if they did go out of business, do you honestly believe that something new (and likely better) would not arise to replace them ?
Your fear is basically an appeal to tradition fallacy: we've always done it this way so we know it works. But that's a logical fallacy. There is almost nothing humans do that can't be done better, sometimes the only way to discover what better looks like is to get rid of the current system entirely first.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
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...
No - I don't think you understand. The DMCA is an American law, and this is a German court.
"Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
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.
Supporting a family does not make you entitled to other peoples money.
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.
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.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Or more to the point, how *you* are going to pay for the web.
I put as much content online as I consume. Much of it is free, some of it is "if you like it, here you can donate" and some is paid.
For me it works. I've been doing this for 20 years and I don't do advertisement and I'm proud of it.
There are other business models beyond selling your readers to advertisers. For example, I stopped downloading MP3s and re-started buying music when it became so easy and convenient with iTunes that finding a torrent and copying it to my phone was more trouble than it was worth.
I'm also happy to click the links to buy something on sites that provide me a service, say a tech review site that links to the items so you can buy them directly. Sure, maybe if I went to some price comparison site and did some checking I might save five bucks, but what for?
All in all, advertising is a pretty great way to pay for things.
No, it's a pretty fucked-up backwards way of getting shafted and sold while you falsely believe you're getting something for free.
If the tracking and privacy issues could be solved.
They can't, because advertisers are not interested in showing ads anymore. They are interested in re-targetting, in tracking and in invading your privacy to the maximum extent possible. Because their whole industry is on the mental level of North Korea and they don't live in the same world as the rest of us anymore.
Even then... 90% of adblock users would keep adblocking because the real issue is they want free AND ad-free.
Sure, who wouldn't want?
But that doesn't mean that a lot of the same people would not be willing to pay if you would offer them something worth the money.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I haven't looked up the past lawsuits, but IIRC another article about this most recent case, this time the argument went along those lines:
1. The newspaper and adblock are competitors because of the acceptable ads program. The court agreed with this to a certain degree, at least to the extent that it agreed to hear a case in which adblock was accused of being a competitor who is applying unfair business practices violating German laws regulating fair competition between businesses (basically, one boxer was complaining to the ref that there's a guy in the ring who keeps punching him in the nuts)
2. The actual complaint was that there's an "implicit contract" between the newspaper's website and its users (i.e. users get articles in exchange for viewing ads) and that adblock is injecting themselves into and actively interfering with the contract between a competitor and the competitor's customers.
That's the contract which the quote
users have the right to block those or any ads, because no such contract exists
in the /. summary refers to.
Obviously from the quote, the court didn't agree that blocking ads is as trying to sabotage a competitor's contracts.
Anyway / tl;dr:
This case was about (specific) unfair business practices.
An earlier one was IIRC about adblock employees' sales pitches for "Acceptable Ads" (i.e. whitelisting in exchange for 30(?)% of your ad revenue) being essentially an extortion/protection money racket:
"Beautiful website and traffic stats you've got there; would be a shame if something were to happen to your ads..."
Other were about..I don't remember..maybe a general "they're 'stealing' from us".
One lawsuit might have been about whether removing the ads can be considered copyright violation because it's altering the appearance of the site (creating a derivative work) without the original authors permission.