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Ad blocking is under attack

blog.adguard.com

161–170 of 598 posts

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#161
post #128
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

soon, someone will implement one-subscription for online content - something like netflix.

This idea has been Coming Soon for decades. But maybe that's ok. I really like that I can visit the vast majority of links I click on for free.

Do you think this will collapse if adblock becomes 90% ubiquitous?

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#162
post #35

There has been a growing trend of websites that will ask me to either: a) whitelist their site in my adblocker b) or subscribe to their monthly subscription and keep reading their site with adblocker

Call me crazy, but this seems like a pretty honorable scheme for profiting off of content. Someone put effort in to create content, and has the option of putting this kind of paywall up. There is a consumer choice made to sell their own attention by viewing ads, pay a subscription fee for the content directly, or just move on to free content elsewhere. That said, most places where you pay the subscription fee will AL…

Adblocking, at this stage, is about personal safety. Ad networks are demanding the right to execute arbitrary code on end users' machines, and have shown themselves to be completely incapable of vetting that code, leading to ad networks being a common and persistent malware distribution channel.

Which means that using the best available adblocking technology is a necessary personal-safety step on the modern internet.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#163
post #20

Just encode the list of urls with htmlentities, base64, rot13, whatever. Then the DMCA can't be used to attack it. Edit: Disagree? Please comment. It's attackable via the DMCA because the word/brand is in the file in it's copyrighted form. If you encode it such that it isn't in that form, it's protected from that approach.

Encrypted IP is still IP.

Encoded, not encrypted. I can't be violating a copyright with text that can't possibly create brand confusion, etc.

The DMCA complaint is patently invalid in this case. A counter notice would almost certainly eventually succeed, it's just a lot of work and potential spend in legal. Encoding it is just removing the ability to use it inappropriately in the first place.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#164
post #3

The DMCA only applies to the US. Fork the repo and move on. It's time to forget about American hosting.

Sad but true :( If we could only remove the logjam in congress right now to get some real work done... currently the two parties are deadlocked in a power struggle and have completely forgotten why they're there.

Libertarian here-- what makes you think that the two parties working together will increase our liberty in regards to the internet?

The logjam keeps the parties from working together to create new inefficient programs, expand others, increase spending. The logjam is _great_ and frankly I hope it continues.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#166
post #95
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is irrelevant because ipfs.io may act as a proxy but content is stored somewhere on the network and accessible via IPFS.

Still need some proxy for it to be accessible from the internet right?

If by "internet" you mean your browser/over HTTP, then yes. But the IPFS client provides exactly that, on your local machine, without any restrictions. If you offer it to the public, you can choose your own policy on copyrighted etc. content.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#167
Encrypt the list and then send a DMCA notice to any company who decrypts it without permission (non ad blocker) and tries to use this scheme again. That would seemingly be a valid DMCA claim, but IANAL.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#168
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad but true :( If we could only remove the logjam in congress right now to get some real work done... currently the two parties are deadlocked in a power struggle and have completely forgotten why they're there.

> currently the two parties are deadlocked in a power struggle You mean since about 1790? There have always been two parties in congress (minus the era of good feelings) and they have always had opposing ideology, and have almost always blocked one another's proposals. It is very naive to think the current Republican congress is anything different or new. Their inaction is intentional - they need to pass their anti-c…

> It is very naive to think the current Republican congress is anything different or new

The Democrats are doing now what the Republicans did for the last 8 years. And I imagine in 7 years the opposite will happen.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#169

I didn't get what the hell happened. So, Admiral—an anti-adblocker company—contacted EasyList and told them to remove a domain from their list. This domain was a server they needed for their anti-adblocker platform to work. EasyList told Admiral that they would only do it if GitHub agreed, so Admiral contacted GitHub and the domain was removed from the EasyList list after GitHub told EasyList they should comply. The…

IIUC, the DMCA says that if there's some technological mechanism X that's used to enforce copyright, and a tool Y that is (or can be) used to circumvent X, then making or distributing Y is itself illegal (as opposed to the act of using Y to circumvent X, which is already illegal even without the DMCA). The DMCA then provides a notice-based method for 'taking down' online copies of Y. In this case, X is the Admiral te…

Whew I had no idea wtf until this comment, thank you.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#170

It was admiral that did this: https://blog.getadmiral.com/dmca-easylist-adblock-copyright-... They even clearly state they used the only tool available to them, DCMA. From all the current summaries on this, DMCA does not apply to a line entry in easylist. A domain can be trademarked. This should be added back in. And if github cannot standup to DMCA abuse, then well, easylist and all other developers should be giving…

DMCA is not the appropriate tool for this. Filing a DMCA takedown notice when you know that there is not any copyright infringement going on in the document you are asking to be taken down is a misuse of the DMCA, and an entity filing such a takedown can be liable for any monetary damages or attorney fess of the other party. Although I don't know that's ever happened, it's in the law as a penalty for intentional misuse of a DMCA takedown notice. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512

It may very well be that the URL should have been removed, with regard to Easylist policies, github policies, or even some other law. But not DMCA takedown notice. If DMCA takedown notice was the only tool available to them, then they had no tools available to them, because DMCA was not a tool legally available for asking someone to remove a URL from a list. A URL in a list is not possibly copyright infringement.

(I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, just my understanding for sake of discussion of a hypothetical)

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