Are Adblock companies breaking the law? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#91

Post by DannyBee » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 11:14 PM UTC

CaptSpify wrote: post #86

DannyBee wrote: post #57

So, it's very funny to look at some of the reactions here. For a group of people who seem to also think they would be great at self-study law ;P, most of them are mostly knee-jerk and come out to "i don't think i should be bound by this, so clearly the law says what i think" or "i think this is a bad idea, so clearly, the article is wrong", instead of making arguments based on actual law and precedent, or even someth…

Is there a lot of current applicable law on this? It seems a new area in which the laws haven't really kept up, thus the disconnect

There are at least 40+ cases on it.

Now: do those cases form some coherent set of rules? No. But there is actually a lot of law on it ;)

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#92

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 11:14 PM UTC

CaptSpify wrote: post #86

DannyBee wrote: post #57

So, it's very funny to look at some of the reactions here. For a group of people who seem to also think they would be great at self-study law ;P, most of them are mostly knee-jerk and come out to "i don't think i should be bound by this, so clearly the law says what i think" or "i think this is a bad idea, so clearly, the article is wrong", instead of making arguments based on actual law and precedent, or even someth…

Is there a lot of current applicable law on this? It seems a new area in which the laws haven't really kept up, thus the disconnect

[deleted]

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#93

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 11:14 PM UTC

CaptSpify wrote: post #86

DannyBee wrote: post #57

So, it's very funny to look at some of the reactions here. For a group of people who seem to also think they would be great at self-study law ;P, most of them are mostly knee-jerk and come out to "i don't think i should be bound by this, so clearly the law says what i think" or "i think this is a bad idea, so clearly, the article is wrong", instead of making arguments based on actual law and precedent, or even someth…

Is there a lot of current applicable law on this? It seems a new area in which the laws haven't really kept up, thus the disconnect

[deleted]

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#94

Post by DanBlake » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 11:32 PM UTC

unprepare wrote: post #83

bad_user wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you're trying to say, as all copyrighted works are made available to the general public, that being the whole purpose of copyright law.

I do enter into an agreement when i go to a theater to watch a movie - I have paid for a ticket to a specific movie, consented to the business' rules (who in turn had to agree to the creators rules), etc. On the other hand, when i view a billboard, i have entered into no such agreement. I just moved my eyes and there it was - i consented to nothing, i purchased nothing, i am under no obligation to take any action or…

wrong. you interact with a website. you need to request its files, html, images. You request nothing of a billboard.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#95

Post by nv-vn » Tue, Nov 24, 2015, 2:10 AM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #32

nv-vn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ad blocking is interfering with the actions of a remote server, for example by blocking the expected transmission of tracking and analytic data.

Except the bot is causing things to be written to the server. The ad blocker is only blocking requests from happening (and those requests occur on the client side, in JavaScript). It's not blocking the transmission from the server's end at all, it's only stopping an event from happening locally.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#96

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 24, 2015, 2:51 AM UTC

DanBlake wrote: post #94

unprepare wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do enter into an agreement when i go to a theater to watch a movie - I have paid for a ticket to a specific movie, consented to the business' rules (who in turn had to agree to the creators rules), etc. On the other hand, when i view a billboard, i have entered into no such agreement. I just moved my eyes and there it was - i consented to nothing, i purchased nothing, i am under no obligation to take any action or…

wrong. you interact with a website. you need to request its files, html, images. You request nothing of a billboard.

[deleted]

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#97

Post by pdonis » Tue, Nov 24, 2015, 5:40 AM UTC

DanBlake wrote: post #54

pdonis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 binari…

You have no idea how cheating in games works. They dont touch the exe, they touch the memory. You can not stop game hacks with any first strike system, Its 100% reaction based, like anti virus software.

> You have no idea how cheating in games works. They dont touch the exe, they touch the memory.

Well, that would certainly make it harder for Blizzard to stop cheating. But not impossible; they would just need to require clients to have locked down memory. That is probably impractical (for example, it might well mean they would have to sell their own locked down client devices), but it's not impossible.

> You can not stop game hacks with any first strike system

Sure you can. But the system might not be practical.

Re: Are Adblock companies breaking the law?

#98

Post by pdonis » Tue, Nov 24, 2015, 5:45 AM UTC

bloaf wrote: post #66

pdonis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 binari…

Ad blocking is not a necessarily a browser-based thing. Even if they were to mandate a blocker-free browser, you could block ads with a firewall, by running your own DNS, or through the HOSTS file.

> you could block ads with a firewall, by running your own DNS, or through the HOSTS file.

Yes, you could, but I doubt that the number of people who have both the knowledge and the motivation to do so, instead of just loading a browser extension, is significant. In any case, my point was that just trying to lock down the browser (let alone trying to lock down firewalls, DNS, etc.) is a nonstarter for companies who want to force people to see their ads; the users' reaction will just be to go to another site.