Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#1

Post by ds » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 5:42 PM UTC

Are Adblock companies breaking the law?
harknesslabs.com

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#2

Post by Raed667 » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

Easy, one argument response: The user should be in control of the code executed on his computer.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#3

Post by Zikes » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 6:03 PM UTC

Website terms of service are not viewable until you have already accessed the web site. Unless the web sites give users an interstitial page wherein they explicitly click a button to agree to the terms of service before proceeding, then they would otherwise fall under Browse Wrap[1], for which most existing legal precedence favors the consumer rather than the web site.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browse_wrap

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#4

Post by trebor » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 6:05 PM UTC

Just a moment, is the argument stating that an implicit contract (that is, the Terms of Service) which I was not required to accept to browse the website, can make using an Ad Blocker illegal?

What about: malware distributed through ad networks, offensive advertisements (the original reason I installed an ad blocker!), and so many advertisements that a midrange spec'd machine staggers when scrolling or navigating?

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#5

Post by blainesch » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 6:05 PM UTC

Raed667 wrote: post #2

Easy, one argument response: The user should be in control of the code executed on his computer.

Couldn't the same argument be used for the blizzard bot? One is more intentionally telling users to break the TOS, but at the end of the day the user is running the code.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#6

Post by zombees » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 6:06 PM UTC

There is one important difference with comparing MDY to adblock though. MDY made software specifically for WoW. Adblock does not make software specifically to target Business Insider or anyone else. Further, if this precedent was set, you could possibly go after people using out of date browsers that can't display your ad content perfectly or viewing text only or a million other ways in which ads wouldn't be left in their pristine state.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#7

Post by baddox » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 6:07 PM UTC

If it's illegal for me to choose which network requests my computer makes and/or accepts, or illegal for someone to create software to help me do that, I think that law is ludicrous and I want it to be changed.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#8

Post by seanalltogether » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 6:08 PM UTC

But the WoW bot was interacting with Blizzards servers and sending changeable actions that could affect the state of their servers. It feels like there's much more to this then a simple TOS.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#9

Post by exo762 » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 6:08 PM UTC

blainesch wrote: post #5

Raed667 wrote: post #2

Easy, one argument response: The user should be in control of the code executed on his computer.

Couldn't the same argument be used for the blizzard bot? One is more intentionally telling users to break the TOS, but at the end of the day the user is running the code.

No really. Bot was executed on user's machine, but effects of bot work were reaching well beyond user's machine, destroying economics of game, user experience and company profits.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#10

Post by smackfu » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 6:09 PM UTC

If a site's terms of service said that access with IE was not allowed, and someone used IE to access the site, could the site sue Microsoft? What about if IE was installed by someone else, are they interfering with the site's contract?