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Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

harknesslabs.com

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Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#11

Post by Zikes »

Can we make a "User TOS" standard wherein a link to a user's personal Terms of Service is embedded in, say, a "User-TOS" GET header, which could include terms implying that by continuing to serve content to the user the web site accepts the user's terms?

Preferably the TOS would include verbiage to continue blocking ads, to forbid the use of tracking cookies, and other such pro-consumer terms.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#12

Post by nv-vn »

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.

I don't think so. The code of the bot is interfering with the actions of a remote server. An ad blocker works locally.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#15

Post by aggronn »

exo762 wrote: post #9
blainesch wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you saying that ad blocking is a victimless 'crime' that doesn't have any effects outside of your computer?

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#19

Post by kllrnohj »

nv-vn wrote: post #12
blainesch wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think so. The code of the bot is interfering with the actions of a remote server. An ad blocker works locally.

No, it's the other way around. The bot worked locally (simulating input). Ad blocks interfere with the actions of a remote server.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#20

Post by gmisra »

IANAL, but this feels like a good thing, that these issues are being hammered out in the courts. I think most people would find the idea that simply viewing a single webpage constitutes a contract with obligations to be unreasonable (as opposed to subscribing to a gaming service).

If publishers want to be explicit about forcing me to read/tldr and acknowledge a terms & conditions document, and then provide me with full transparency into what information is collected, and full agency over where else that information is transmitted, then yes, let us definitely engage in a contract. But the former destroys pageviews (a poor proxy for engagement anyway), and the latter will erode the massive grey-market in user-data and targeted advertising. From where I'm sitting, I don't think it's in publishers' best interests to shine a bright light on the current publisher/reader relationship.

However, as history shows, entrenched institutions have plenty of influence (cash) to transform a beneficial-to-them status-quo into "the law", e.g. when DVRs came out and programmatic commercial skipping was deemed to be illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_skipping

Now might be a good time for some of us to donate to the EFF https://supporters.eff.org/donate

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