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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

#181

Post by majewsky »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #132
rahrahrah wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's why I swear in Nepali /s That's obviously bullshit, the actual reason is the omnipresence of the word fuck in the english language, and the omnipresence of the english language everywhere in the world. You just adopt it.

The omnipresence of English explains why in Germany they swear in English instead of French, but it does not explain why they swear in English instead of German. Why swear in a different language at all?

This is purely anecdotal, but as a German, I like "fuck" because there is no German swear word that replicates its tone of voice and conciseness. But you can rest assured that I use plenty of German swear words, too. In this industry, the more languages you can draw swear words from, the better.

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

#182

Post by eeZah7Ux »

briandear wrote: post #70
id wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Please define "fair share." That is such a loaded term because it implies that the only benefit of a company to people is in the tax revenue it provides a government. We could reframe that argument to say that Google should provide a fair share of jobs to the unemployed. Billions of revenue but far fewer employees than some companies half the size. Clearly Google isn't hiring a 'fair share' of workers right? We can r…

> If Google paid zero tax, the economy is far better off with them than without them; look at the jobs it provides (and the economic activity those generate,) look at the return on investment to shareholders

You are saying that a successful company should have a special exemption from the law while other companies are still to pay taxes.

> Remember, taxes aren't ever paid by companies -- they are paid by individuals

Strawman.

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

#183

Post by Snowe »

tim333 wrote: post #37
supergreg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sometimes it's a good thing. Often it gives me a few moments to pause and realise I really didn't need to read that article anyway.

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

#184

Post by morgante »

PerryCox wrote: post #104
morgante wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is better than Adblock Plus in (all?) ways (see the README for more details) That's only if people agree with your ideology. Instead of making blanket statements which are inherently subjective, just explain why you prefer Adblock Plus. Personally, I vastly prefer Adblock Plus. I have no ideological objection to advertising or tracking in general, I just don't want intrusive ads. ABP does an excellent job of filter…

Read the README. ABP sold out a while back and now shows ads on certain websites who pay money to ABP. uBlock Origin doesn't show ads on any website unless you specifically allow it.

It's amazing to me that you can't even grasp that the point you're trying to make is ideological: that ads are inherently evil and should all be blocked.

I'm fully aware of ABP's business model. I just happen to like it. Stop trying to present a difference of ideological opinion as a feature difference. You can make ABP work exactly the same as uBlock and (apparently) vice versa.

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

#185

Post by stevesearer »

summarite wrote: post #161
koolba wrote: post #90

> "The Claimant [Spiegel] argues that the Defendant’s [Eyeo's] business model endangers the Claimant’s existence," reads the judgment, which isn't final because it can be appealed by Spiegel. Because users aren't willing to pay for editorial content on the Web, "it is not economically viable for the Claimant to switch to this business model." In what situation is endangering someone's business model grounds for their…

This would probably result in less relevant ads and more power of ad providers, ie less neutral reporting. Think about how some companies or political parties 'punish' critical media by pulling ads and advertising with the competition instead. Imagine you little newspaper have a harsh truth to deliver about Nestle or P&G - and you know if you do so a large chunk of your revenue will disappear. On the other hand this…

I self-publish and self-host my site's advertising and in my case the ads are actually more relevant.

The different is that I target the ads based on the content rather than the reader. In that way I try to treat it like a magazine where the content itself narrows down who will be reading without the need for dertermining them using adtech solutions.

No idea if the model would work on a general news site, but it does work and isn't terrible.

I can't speak to your point about a brand pressuring me for being critical though since that isn't really the nature of my site and publication.

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

#186

Post by morgante »

Thrillington wrote: post #139
a3n wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, as mentioned higher up, you might actually want to support ad-based sites. This is an easy way to do it with no effort. I use uBlock. But I approve of the existence and success of ABP and similar. People differ.

You can support ad-based sites with either tool by whitelisting a site. uBlock requires you to do this explicitly for each site you want to support through ad revenue. I suspect most novice users will never do this. ABP is now using their user base as leverage to extract payment from some sites to show ads by default. I don't think that is a good idea at first blush, but there may be arguments for the practice I have…

A lot of quality content I find is on niche blogs where I might only read an article or two. These blogs are often advertising supported.

I'd much rather outsource the work of whitelisting to ABP than having to do an individual consideration on every single site I visit.

There's also the fact that I never want to see malicious/intrusive advertising. If I maintain my own whitelists, I have to experiment site by site. If I use ABP, they do that experimentation and enforcement for me.

The thing that totally frustrates me is how many people in this thread seem to be totally incapable of grasping that ABP in fact offers exactly what I want: someone blocking intrusive advertising, but not all advertising, with me having to do zero work. As a bonus, there's even a business model attached (so they're less likely to randomly sell out their install base to a malware provider).

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

#187

Post by phpnode »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #180
skybrian wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is a different political position. I don't want all advertising-supported websites to die, which is what would happen if you convinced everyone to do what you do.

I don't want them to die either; I want them to adapt, or be replaced by sites that can adapt. There's no hard dichotomy between "sites that charge users" and "sites that run ads"; some sites do neither, and still manage to survive just fine by many other means.

Take something like Google Search, a service that is ad-supported but is free to use and produces an enormous amount of value for virtually everyone on the internet. What is their business model in a post-adwords world, where they've been forced to adapt? Presumably they'd have to charge for it, which means that the poorest people on the internet would not have access to this amazing tool that we take utterly for granted now. No one likes (poorly targeted, invasive) ads, but is that world preferable?

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

#188

Post by seviu »

Me and my business partner did get hit by Springer in Germany due to an iOS content blocker. We lost the part that relates to damages and won the one that touches copyright.

Springer bases its claims on two principles:

1) Ad blockers are damaging their business money-wise.

2) An article and an Ad are an indivisible entity. And from a copyright perspective, removing the Ad means violating the copyright of the article.

We lost 1 and won 2. Now we are on the second round. In Hamburg too, which relieves me. Hamburg is tough. If Eyeo won there we have a good chance to win as well. And now Eyeo decided to support us. Things are getting a bit better for our case.

Because of that I am truly grateful to them. If it was not from Eyeo Ad blockers would be now banned from Germany.

Our case was the typical one that I thought only happens in the movies: Big company crushes small company (and crushed us indeed they did) to build a case against a bigger company than us.

From what is worth I am very happy that Eyeo won the case. If they win they will have a legal precedent. And they will go for against all the others.

And what about our ad blocker? We had to take it out from the App Store.

I wrote an article a few months ago regarding this case would somebody be interested.

https://medium.com/@iPhonsoGmbH/

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

#189

Post by morgante »

phpnode wrote: post #187
JoshTriplett wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want them to die either; I want them to adapt, or be replaced by sites that can adapt. There's no hard dichotomy between "sites that charge users" and "sites that run ads"; some sites do neither, and still manage to survive just fine by many other means.

Take something like Google Search, a service that is ad-supported but is free to use and produces an enormous amount of value for virtually everyone on the internet. What is their business model in a post-adwords world, where they've been forced to adapt ? Presumably they'd have to charge for it, which means that the poorest people on the internet would not have access to this amazing tool that we take utterly for gr…

Exactly. There are also huge problems associated with paying for many of these free services.

If it were a pay-per-search model then I'd have to make a mental decision every time I do a search. This would impose massive cognitive overhead and present a deadweight loss.

If it were a subscription model, building a competitive search engine would suddenly become much harder. Right now, I can freely experiment between different search engines to find the right one for a given query. If I need a subscription, then it would much more firmly entrench the dominant player.

People spend a lot of time railing against advertising without considering how many great services have been supported by it for hundreds of years.

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

#190

Post by clarkmoody »

koolba wrote: post #90

> "The Claimant [Spiegel] argues that the Defendant’s [Eyeo's] business model endangers the Claimant’s existence," reads the judgment, which isn't final because it can be appealed by Spiegel. Because users aren't willing to pay for editorial content on the Web, "it is not economically viable for the Claimant to switch to this business model." In what situation is endangering someone's business model grounds for their…

> In what situation is endangering someone's business model grounds for their illegality?

Only in the case of government protectionism. And even then, there is no legitimate situation where it should be illegal to challenge an existing business model.

I'm glad the Internet exploded before the government cronies really understood it.

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