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Ad blocking is under attack

blog.adguard.com

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Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#341

Post by Karunamon »

djsumdog wrote: post #200
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's their fault for delivering data they want restricted. I'm under no obligation to make every HTTP request they want me to or execute any untrusted JavaScript. Nor am I obligated to render their HTML as intended. If they want these things then they need every user to enter onto a binding contract agreeing to those terms.

ah, but you might be. This gets into a crazy area where we're talking about some entity offering up information via HTTP and you choosing how to represent that data. You could use Lynx, Firefox, Chrome, IE or even just browse everything with Python/BeautifulSoup in a console. Does the provider get to chose how you represent that data? Well it turns out they kinda do. Sites have terms of service people supposedly agre…

Worse. A world where companies just take their stuff off the web and require you use their apps for everything. Much fewer legal questions there.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#342

Post by sillysaurus3 »

tyingq wrote: post #317
freeone3000 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"brand confusion"? You seem to be conflating copyright law with trademark law. If I had a copy of "Steamboat Willie", it wouldn't matter if it was H.264 encoded or md5summed or stored in an AES locker, it's still a copyright violation because I don't have a license for the content.

I'm not, the filer of the DMCA is. How else could just a uri being on a page cause a DMCA takedown of a page? That's what happened...they filed a DMCA because the text " http://whatever" was on a github page. Which sounds a lot like meaning trademark, but saying copyright. That's why I don't consider this underhanded. As you mention, it's not copyrighted in the first place. Obscuring it is just closing the loophole t…

The project maintainer wanted to take it down. He has gone on record saying that the url shouldn't have been there in the first place, regardless of the DMCA.

If you put an encrypted blob on each line instead of a plaintext url, the DMCA notice will contain "My copyrighted work appears at which decrypts to when using ." It's exactly the same as the original claim. If you feel they're not technically sophisticated enough to file a claim like this, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#343

Post by JBSay »

danarmak wrote: post #178
jrochkind1 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 misu…

The DMCA doesn't just let you request the takedown of copyrighted content. It lets you request the takedown of tools which can be used to "circumvent technological restrictions" on accessing other, unrelated copyrighted content. So for instance, when the CSS encryption on DVDs was broken, there were DMCA takedown requests issued to sites hosting the deCSS decryption code, even though the copyright of that code itself…

An adblocker is not a tool which can be used to "circumvent technological restrictions" on accessing other, unrelated copyrighted content. It is a tool to restrict access to content.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#344

Post by tehlike »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #52
tehlike wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Already happening in some form with Blendle. It will always be bundles though, the internet is too huge.

why? what if sites are rewarded based on time user spends on it actively? what if websites just sign up to be part of the network, and uses common api (think: subscriptionService.isPaidUser() { show content } else { say "sorry" }

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#345

Post by kuschku »

allemagne wrote: post #316
kuschku wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why maybe Trump can have one good effect: By causing other countries to distance itself from the US.

The unfortunate truth is that there are mostly only much more authoritarian countries to fill any leadership void left by the US. As flawed as it is, and as flawed as Trump is, European countries can only step up so much to keep liberal democratic societies as the global ideal.

Maybe it could also help Europe to unify better. I'm certainly hopeful.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#346

Post by cft »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #308
cft wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notice does not list the copyrighted works that are being infringed (I.e. made publicly available). This is the necessary element of a valid DMCA notice.

Wasn't the takedown request for a circumvention technology versus any specific works?

In this interpretation, the list of the specific copyrighted protected works that they provided a circumventing technology to access, is absent from this notice. I believe no legal theory works here, and I can refer them to a capable law firm if they are interested.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#347

Post by jerf »

m-j-fox wrote: post #320
jerf wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the challenge here is that "the DMCA" is a number of clauses. People who are "against the DMCA" often turn out to have an incoherent position, at least from a legal standpoint, when it turns out they just disagree with one of the contentious clauses. This would in fact be the most contentious clause, the one about being able to take down tools that enable circumvention, the one that is historically the one th…

> penumbric emanation Vocabulary much? I'll bet there's a blip on Google Trends today.

It's a legal term: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/penumbras

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#348

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cft wrote: post #346
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the takedown request for a circumvention technology versus any specific works?

In this interpretation, the list of the specific copyrighted protected works that they provided a circumventing technology to access, is absent from this notice. I believe no legal theory works here, and I can refer them to a capable law firm if they are interested.

> What copyrighted protected works did they provide circumventing technology to access?

Anything behind a paywall. I'm not defending what they did. But I sort of understand how it could be permissible under the DMCA. (A law regarding which the EFF and I share many opinions.)

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#349

Post by drewmol »

Lagged2Death wrote: post #115
superflyguy wrote: post #27

Store a hash of the URLs instead of the URLs themselves.

I don't see how this would work when the URL lists are full of regexps etc. If you could make it work, you'd would wind up with some sort of source file of domains, parsed at build time to generate list of hashes that actually ship with your plugin. That source file would belong in a repo, and would still be DMCA-able in this way. Also, this would make ad-blockers even more CPU intensive than they are. We shouldn't h…

>Also, this would make ad-blockers even more CPU intensive than they are.

Although they may be CPU intensive in terms of browser add-ons, I'm under the impression ad blockers are usually less CPU intensive than loading all the scripts required to display the ads, at least on particularly heavy pages. Does the CPU cost of blocker vs ads ever favor ads?

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