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German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal

arstechnica.com

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Re: German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal

#31

Post by id »

Hermel wrote: post #5

Any other verdict would be a potential legal risk to Google and everyone else in the ad business for the following reason: if Google can force its users to see ads, this basically means that they are not providing a free service any more, but that Google and the user engage in an exchange: Google provides the search service, and the user agrees to look at a few ads in return. Legally speaking, this could be seen as b…

> This sounds absurd at first sight

Yes, companies paying their fair share of taxes is absurd.

Re: German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal

#32

Post by Freak_NL »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #25
msandford wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Abp is basically a cop that allows some criminals to slip through as long as they pay on the side... that's the moral issue. Only if ABP states that they block ALL ads, full stop. But their website doesn't say that, it says "Surf the web without annoying ads!" which wouldn't exclude non-annoying ads. Maybe that's not how the extension/service was initially introduced but at this point they're not lying to new users…

I'd like to comment on the non-annoying part. I use uBlock (and previously, ADP) because of the fact that parts of the Internet will give you ADHD, no matter if you started with it or not. Parts of the Internet are quite literally unusable without ad blocks. This should be a much larger discussion than it is, given how shitty sites don't get lots of views, ergo, who's actually viewing the ads to begin with?

Ads apparently work. Either by impression (you notice the ad, and the brand gains a tiny bit of reputation in your unconscious mind) or by directly engaging you (“40% off on 'item'! That's actually a pretty good deal!”).

Large corporations wouldn't advertise online if they didn't have metrics that back up that claim. If advertising online in November meant a significant rise in sales, then apparently buying the ads worked. People are viewing them.

This doesn't mean that ads work equally well with every viewer, and it certainly does not imply that ads are beneficial to the viewer, but it does mean that ads do generate income.

I agree that ads can be part of a problem for a lot of folk, and I recommend anyone I see browsing without an ad-blocker to install one of course.

Re: German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal

#33

Post by Jdam »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #15

Since this submission relates to blocking ads and trackers, I think it's worth bringing up that uBlock Origin [0] is better than Adblock Plus in (all?) ways (see the README for more details). I migrated to it a few years ago and overall I've been very happy with the outcome. I'm opposed to all tracking that isn't opt-in by default. I haven't thought about the topic at great lengths, so there may be cases which I'm fa…

I tried to ditch ABP in favour of uBlock 1-or-so years ago and I found it way worse in terms of the amount of blocked ads.

Re: German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal

#35

Post by Throwaway23412 »

gorhill wrote: post #21
Cenk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I prefer something like ublock that doesn't ask money to let ads through. I'm puzzled by the morality of that. Adblock Plus has a really weird business model. Basically anyone can write an ad blocker, and they all use basically the same lists of rules anyway. So why would an entire company with 74 employees ( https://eyeo.com/team ) exist just to make an Adblocker? By adding a bunch of shady stuff on top to make mon…

> Basically anyone can write an ad blocker Did you ever write one that endures? From first-hand experience, I spent so much time working on uBO in the last 2.5 years that I would appreciate the task to not be trivialised with such sentence as "anyone can write an ad blocker". Such trivialisation prevent those who don't understand software development from valuing all the work done, up to being told "F you!" when refu…

It's just another example of the "distorted bubble the typical HNer lives in" comment I made a few days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13112407). 95% of people can barely use a computer and I'm supposed to believe that anyone can write an ad blocker?

Anyway, thank you for your work. uBlock Origin is literally the first extension I install whenever I use a new browser/computer. It's lightweight yet powerful and your default lists remove a lot of the work involved in deciding what nonsense to block. Whenever I don't have it installed, I'm amazed at how user-hostile the web has become. We may have gotten rid of pop-ups but advertisers have reached new heights of annoyance with popovers and ads that push down the content you're currently reading. It's absurd that people actually endure 30 second video ads to watch a 1 minute YouTube clip.

Re: German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal

#36

Post by Throwaway23412 »

Jdam wrote: post #33
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #15

Since this submission relates to blocking ads and trackers, I think it's worth bringing up that uBlock Origin [0] is better than Adblock Plus in (all?) ways (see the README for more details). I migrated to it a few years ago and overall I've been very happy with the outcome. I'm opposed to all tracking that isn't opt-in by default. I haven't thought about the topic at great lengths, so there may be cases which I'm fa…

I tried to ditch ABP in favour of uBlock 1-or-so years ago and I found it way worse in terms of the amount of blocked ads.

I'm struggling to see how that would even be true. ABP literally allows companies to pay to get past their block.

Re: German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal

#37

Post by tim333 »

supergreg wrote: post #13
tmnvix wrote: post #10

Am I missing something? If Der Spiegal doesn't want people to view their content while using an ad-blocker can't they detect and block those users (assuming those users also allow JS)?

It's a cat and mouse thing. If they add some js to check for ad blockers then ad blockers block that too. They could check over time if a user has seen as many ads as page views and block them then but users would just need to delete their cookies.

Until recently I've not had problems using ad blockers but in the last month http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ has become good at telling if I'm using one and not returning content if so. I wonder if this is the start of a more general fight back.

I guess as blockers stop ads downloading they just need to have something like an ad or an actual one and check if it's downloaded.

Re: German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal

#38

Post by mioelnir »

pfortuny wrote: post #34

Why do they not buy the ads and serve them from their servers in a difficult-to-guess way? Like a mid-sentence jpg or whatever?

To serve the ads under the 1st party domain - without ending up in a situation where the entity reporting the number of ad impressions and the entity receiving money based on that number of ad impressions are the same - is often significant effort.

Re: German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal

#39

Post by rahrahrah »

id wrote: post #31
Hermel wrote: post #5

Any other verdict would be a potential legal risk to Google and everyone else in the ad business for the following reason: if Google can force its users to see ads, this basically means that they are not providing a free service any more, but that Google and the user engage in an exchange: Google provides the search service, and the user agrees to look at a few ads in return. Legally speaking, this could be seen as b…

> This sounds absurd at first sight Yes, companies paying their fair share of taxes is absurd.

I'd even say it's un-American. And I think it's the first time I used that term without sarcasm.

Re: German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal

#40

Post by joeblau »

pmontra wrote: post #2

Some interesting facts from the article > As of August 2015, Adblock Plus was installed on approximately 9.55 million browsers with German IP addresses. That's about five percent of the computers in Germany used to access the Internet. > About 3,500 websites are on the Adblock Plus "whitelisting" program that allows for "acceptable ads" to be viewed by default. About 90 percent of those sites don't pay, but the large…

I just modify my `/etc/hsots` and block the ad hosted domains at the source.

   cat /etc/hosts | wc -l
    34003
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