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Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

harknesslabs.com

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Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#21

Post by pdonis »

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.

And the remedy is the same in both cases: if the provider really doesn't want people using clients that do certain things, the provider needs to control access so that only clients that don't do those things can access their server.

In the case of Blizzard, this would mean forcing gamers to run clients that were known by Blizzard to not contain bots; for example, Blizzard could force users to use signed client binaries. Blizzard might actually be able to get away with this because their users are paying customers who really, really want to play their game.

In the case of a website running ads, this would mean forcing viewers to run clients that were known by the website to not contain ad blockers; for example, the website could force viewers to run signed browser binaries. Of course, no site that runs ads will try this, because it would just mean nobody would view their site. Notice that sites whose users actually need to go there to do business, such as banking sites or Amazon, don't complain about ad blockers. It's only sites whose business model depends on ads that do. That should be a "here's your sign" moment to ad-supported sites that their business model is not sustainable. It should not be an excuse to sue ad blockers.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#22

Post by zombees »

seanalltogether wrote: post #8

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.

More important is that it's designed to interact with blizzards servers. Adblock is a generic utility

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#24

Post by bryanlarsen »

zombees wrote: post #6

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…

Those million other ways are missing two important principles of tortuous intereference:

- intent

- knowledge that they're interfering with a contract.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#25

Post by hijiri »

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.

Yes, the ToS restricting how the user uses the software should not exist in the first place. Keeping control of your computing is the core idea of free software.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#26

Post by zecg »

Zikes wrote: post #3

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

I use ublock origin to hide the wrapper and the cookie agreement, I never click I agree.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#27

Post by kllrnohj »

zombees wrote: post #6

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…

Adblocks work by maintaining white/black lists. As such, they inherently are targeting specific URLs.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#28

Post by soyiuz »

First, it is not clear if a web "surfer" is in a contractual relationship with a random site s/he visits in a way that a Blizzard gamer is (by the virtue of buying the game and clicking through the TOS).

Second, Blizzard game bots use a part of the company's codebase, where the ad blocker works solely in my own browser. They do not rely on proprietary code that belongs to someone else.

Finally, where the Blizzard bot is made with the single purpose of violating Blizzard's TOS, the ad blocker has many legitimate uses, outside of any aggrieved party. By this token, could we not go after Oracle or Mozilla for facilitating the breach of contract in maintaining JavaScript (a language then used to break the contract)?

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#29

Post by anowlcalledjosh »

trebor wrote: post #4

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?

By browsing the website, the argument is that you implicitly accepted the ToS. It's legally shaky, and generally the ToS or a link to them must have been provably shown to the user.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browse_wrap

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