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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

#201

Post by kuschku »

greglindahl wrote: post #146
franciscop wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90% of the whitelist is not paid, and that 10% helps develop the program. Not only that, you are asked upon installation whether or not to allow for acceptable ads (which is ticked on by default, but still not such a controversial point as you make it sound).

90% by lines or sites or 90% by money? ABP charges medium-sized websites through the nose -- and most startups qualify as medium-sized. Great business model, especially given that the filter lists are made by volunteers.

> especially given that the filter lists are made by volunteers.

Except, the acceptable ads list for larger companies can only be modified by Eyeo, and they only do it after being paid. It’s a racket.

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

#202

Post by bigbugbag »

a3n wrote: post #128
dawnerd wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why use an extension that white lists ads by default when there's an open source alternative that you have full control over?

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.

I suppose You could copy paste the ABP whitelist into ublock origins so you do not forfeit ublock performance advantage.

IMHO you choose yourself the websites you want to whitelist, this way you can give away your privacy for fraction of pennies to the websites you choose to support. What if you want to support a controversial website that has been banned from most conventional advertising networks (for example the piratebay) ?

Then again the trade off between permanent own privacy loss for fraction of pennies make no sense to me.

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

#203

Post by greglindahl »

kuschku wrote: post #201
greglindahl wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90% by lines or sites or 90% by money? ABP charges medium-sized websites through the nose -- and most startups qualify as medium-sized. Great business model, especially given that the filter lists are made by volunteers.

> especially given that the filter lists are made by volunteers. Except, the acceptable ads list for larger companies can only be modified by Eyeo, and they only do it after being paid. It’s a racket.

Oh, I totally agree that it's a racket. My point about the filter lists is that the block lists are made by volunteers. Not the acceptable ad list. Sorry that I wasn't clear.

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

#204

Post by alexpoulsen »

morgante wrote: post #84
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…

> 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…

This was on HN a few days ago: http://www.welivesecurity.com/2016/12/06/readers-popular-web...

Basically ads that exploit you without you clicking on them. I don't know if it was on the acceptable ads list and you had a old copy of adobe acrobat, then you would be hacked. They didn't mention what sites but users in Central Europe got it on popular websites. Sites you'd probably trust.

Other than static ads between the hosting site and the site that wants to advertise without a middleman ad network, I don't trust any ads. In the case listed previously, a human is more likely to review the ad, making it safer.

Since I care about not getting hacked, the obvious conclusion for me is to block all ads.

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

#205

Post by tscs37 »

kuschku wrote: post #198
tscs37 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel myself being very reasonable. If you disagree, would you mind explaining why or is that unreasonable to ask? Theory does not hold.

1. uBlock can be configured to show acceptable ads (it’s just opt-in). 2. uBlock is faster than ABP. So you have zero disadvantages, but one advantage. As a result, it’s strictly superior.

Point 1 is basically what your personal preference is. I prefer it opt out as this will lead to more people supporting websites with ads. (defaults matter, check out organ donor studies on this)

While I admit that ublock is faster, Adblock plus has much better integration and looks better. When it's installed it presents me with very few options and I'm basically good to go without changing and settings.

Additionally I use umatrix which covers and options abp does not,which helps abps speed to almost not matter anymore.

Lastly I would add that the latencies I've measured to be caused by Adblock plus fall almost into the region of "doesn't matter". What little benefit ublock has given me the Times I've tested it was barely worth it.

Purely by "it's faster" you should probably be using ed over any other editor right now since ed is objectively faster than any other POSIX editor. Or pretty much most editors.

>strictly

I'd refrain from using absolutes when making statements about personal opinion. It makes you look like a fool.

>no advantages

As stated earlier, abp has much better integration. It's one advantage vs one advantage.

Seems like personal choice to me.

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

#206

Post by alexpoulsen »

paulddraper wrote: post #150
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…

AdBlock plus is intrusive. We had sporadic user complaints of our web SaaS not working. They had AdBlock and couldn't download files from S3 with certain keys. They key was the hex encoding of the hash of the contents. f4/c0/34/ad/91/... Notice the ad

Lol That's funny At least whitelisting S3 is probably fine

I was QAing for a company. They had a link in an email go through a tracker as opposed to loading the tracker on another site. Obviously uBlock blocked it and confused me for a few minutes until I realized what it was blocking.

They didn't like my suggestion to have the tracker be loaded externally so if it was blocked, no big deal.

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

#207

Post by morgante »

alexpoulsen wrote: post #204
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…

This was on HN a few days ago: http://www.welivesecurity.com/2016/12/06/readers-popular-web... Basically ads that exploit you without you clicking on them. I don't know if it was on the acceptable ads list and you had a old copy of adobe acrobat, then you would be hacked. They didn't mention what sites but users in Central Europe got it on popular websites. Sites you'd probably trust. Other than static ads between th…

That definitely does not meet the standard of ABP's acceptable ads program and it would be banned if found.

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

#208

Post by morgante »

bigbugbag wrote: post #197
morgante wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ads are not inherently evil, the omnipresent associated tracking and surveillance is. Problem is almost all ads come with tracking nowadays which in turn makes them evil. That's another reason ublock origins is far superior to ABP: it blocks tracking by default. Of you can configure each one to mimick the other but users seldom change the defaults hence the 75% of german users subscribed to ABP acceptable ads program…

> Ads are not inherently evil, the omnipresent associated tracking and surveillance is.

Do you really not see how thinking "tracking" is evil is an inherently ideological statement?

I do not care if Google tracks literally everything I do online. I don't consider it evil and in fact willingly opt-in to tracking.

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

#209

Post by chc »

bigbugbag wrote: post #195
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.

This argument has no basis, those websites don't have to die, they have to think of an alternative business model. Some have already transitioned to crowdfunding (see patreon, the dice tower getting funded on kickstarter,...) micropayment, subscriptions. But this case of "your failed business model is not my problem" is not to blame on adblockers alone but also on dwindling ads revenue among others reasons due to fac…

When a site as big as Wikipedia has to spend a large chunk of each year begging for handouts, I have trouble buying your suggestion that alternative business models are generally viable.

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

#210

Post by lastyearman »

summarite wrote: post #173
greyman wrote: post #87

It seems to me that Spiegel looks at it from a ridiculous premise, that Internet somehow should provide a working business model for them. I just can't imagine how something like ABP could be illegal... I made a http request to get a public resources, and it is up to me how I will display it, I can filter everything but a text, or if I want I can render the page so only ads will be displayed. :-) I have no obligation…

It would be pretty sad if the web really can't provide a working business model for quality news. I prefer ads rather than high-cost paywalls, and then ideally a "use as-free" option for a small sum (think android apps). I want to read diverse sources and can't cough up €50-160 for 10-20 different sites that i use more or less frequently. I'd pay €5-10 for each good site that i use frequently to see it ad free and am…

But surely, on average, you end up paying one way or the other? That money has to come somewhere, right? Either you end up paying by buying the advertised products or paying the site directly. Why not just cut the middle men?
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