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Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

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Re: Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

#111

Post by perihelions »

kstrauser wrote: post #26

A friend raised what I consider a very valid point, that ad blockers are assistive technology for people with ADHD. They prevent the web from being an unusable mess of shiny distraction. And as such, in America, blocking ad blockers is a violation of the ADA. I’m being completely serious here and so is he. I can barely use the web without ad blockers. They make it possible for me to participate in online life. Remove…

The best possible outcome, in that hypothetical, would be gaining the right to pay money to visit ad-free versions of websites. ADA can't compel anyone to provide services to the public for free; only to provide non-discriminatory, reasonable accommodations.

Re: Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

#112

Post by CalRobert »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #103
CalRobert wrote: post #43

Does this make curl illegal? Wget?

These gotcha questions are a waste of time. "If I close my eyes whenever I see an ad will I go to jail?" Obviously the one-click effortless and mainstream availability of adblocking is what they care about, not laborious methods accessible to just a few people with the ability and wherewithal. If tooling is written around curl for this purpose that becomes accessible and mainstream and popular, yes that tooling would…

I didn’t think it was a gotcha, I could see idiot politicians actually making cli tools illegal.

Re: Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

#113

Post by kstrauser »

perihelions wrote: post #111
kstrauser wrote: post #26

A friend raised what I consider a very valid point, that ad blockers are assistive technology for people with ADHD. They prevent the web from being an unusable mess of shiny distraction. And as such, in America, blocking ad blockers is a violation of the ADA. I’m being completely serious here and so is he. I can barely use the web without ad blockers. They make it possible for me to participate in online life. Remove…

The best possible outcome, in that hypothetical, would be gaining the right to pay money to visit ad-free versions of websites. ADA can't compel anyone to provide services to the public for free; only to provide non-discriminatory, reasonable accommodations.

It does compel them to provide accessible entry to public spaces. You can't have a public store without allowing and supporting access to people with wheelchairs, for example.

Re: Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

#114

Post by sneak »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #91
sneak wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I own the hard drive. How I choose to arrange the little magnetic islands on the platter is my business. Most people do not agree, in that they think arranging the magnetic fields in your drive to represent and store child pornography should be punishable. It isn’t a stretch then to presume that storage of other types of data might also be proscribed.

> Most people do not agree, in that they think arranging the magnetic fields in your drive to represent and store child pornography should be punishable. I do not do that. Thus, the example is irrelevant. Though it might actually be a good example as to how people use excuses like that to violate others' liberty even when they're not engaged in that particular reprehensible activity. Even before you finished reading…

I think you must have misunderstood me. I'm not a copyright maximalist, in fact I am against all copyrights and IP and even the existence of a state to enforce same.

I'm pointing out that under our current system, our society has banned storage of certain digital material. It is not inconsistent with our current system to expect other types of digital material to be banned similarly.

> I own the hard drive. How I choose to arrange the little magnetic islands on the platter is my business.

It's not just sequences of magnetic fields; it's what those magnetic fields represent that cause them to be legislated upon. Thus, your implied argument that you should be free to do whatever you wish simply because it's just magnetic fields on your own device (an argument I agree with 100%, fwiw) is not really a rebuttal in this case because our current system does not recognize or permit that right, and a majority of people in our society agree with that circumstance.

It's nothing whatsoever to do with what types of files you personally do or do not store. The CP example was simply an example of one type of banned magnetic field patterns. Another would be bulk stolen PII.

I actually agree with your viewpoint; but ours is a minority opinion that is not reflected in society or law. Even though there is no victim when a digital file is copied, a majority of people in our world do not want possession and distribution of certain files to be legal.

Re: Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

#115

Post by Telaneo »

danudey wrote: post #105
fabian2k wrote: post #23

I can't judge the legal aspects. But a significant point here is that Adblock Plus allows you do pay them to get preferential treatment for your ads. I don't know how much this part affects the legal issues here, but for me that is quite a different situation than a pure ad blocker. There is a coercive element here, if your ad blocker is used widely enough and you take money for preferential treatment.

I would be in favor of some kind of vetting program, where you (the ad network) commit to ensuring your (customers') ads aren't scammy, e.g. advertising on software download sites with an ad that looks like a download button. Much like spam, if your ads get reported and they're verified as being in violation, you get taken off the whitelist. Unfortunately, the main use case I have for 'ad blockers' isn't just blockin…

> I would be in favor of some kind of vetting program, where you (the ad network) commit to ensuring your (customers') ads aren't scammy, e.g. advertising on software download sites with an ad that looks like a download button. Much like spam, if your ads get reported and they're verified as being in violation, you get taken off the whitelist.

On principle I'd disagree, and say that those types of ads should be illegal to begin with. It's amazing how many straight up scams are being advertised on otherwise trusted platforms, like Youtube. You should be responsible for what ads you put up and make sure you aren't perpetuating something illegal.

I also have no faith in the ad companies not using this as the thin end of the wedge and opportunity to start chipping away at what constitutes a non-intrusive ad. Today they only allow static ads, in two years they'll allow gifs, and in five they'll allow autoplaying audio.

If a serious bargain could be made with the ad industry that we allow them to show non-intrusive ads, and don't block them, and in exchange, they behave like human beings, then I'd take that, but I'm still not convinced the people who work in those industries are quite human to begin with. And that bargain probably wouldn't even fix the 'site loads super slow because it has to download 5 GBs of JS bloat', which is something ad blockers and the like also help to manage.

Re: Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

#116

Post by close04 »

layer8 wrote: post #33
nothrabannosir wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised to see this downvoted; I hadn’t even thought of it but it actually seems like an eminently reasonable take. The only logical conclusion, even. How could you argue otherwise? Would love to hear a down voter’s dissent because I’m not seeing it.

It was probably downvoted because it is orthogonal to the issue. The website is (or should be) responsible for malware regardless of whether you are allowed to block it or not.

Yes and no. Today the site should be held responsible. But if a law like this is passed then the site must be held responsible. This is what makes all the difference.

P.S. Today a site owner is not responsible if an ad is malware, they pass it on to the ad network, who passes it on, and so on.

Re: Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

#117

Post by layer8 »

close04 wrote: post #116
layer8 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was probably downvoted because it is orthogonal to the issue. The website is (or should be) responsible for malware regardless of whether you are allowed to block it or not.

Yes and no. Today the site should be held responsible. But if a law like this is passed then the site must be held responsible. This is what makes all the difference. P.S. Today a site owner is not responsible if an ad is malware, they pass it on to the ad network, who passes it on, and so on.

I disagree. In absence of the law, the responsibility is just the same. It‘s unreasonable to place the responsibility on the user.

Re: Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

#118

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

sneak wrote: post #114
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people do not agree, in that they think arranging the magnetic fields in your drive to represent and store child pornography should be punishable. I do not do that. Thus, the example is irrelevant. Though it might actually be a good example as to how people use excuses like that to violate others' liberty even when they're not engaged in that particular reprehensible activity. Even before you finished reading…

I think you must have misunderstood me. I'm not a copyright maximalist, in fact I am against all copyrights and IP and even the existence of a state to enforce same. I'm pointing out that under our current system, our society has banned storage of certain digital material. It is not inconsistent with our current system to expect other types of digital material to be banned similarly. > I own the hard drive. How I cho…

My apologies then. It's a heated subject for me I guess.

Re: Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

#119

Post by agent327 »

Next the police will be knocking on your door, just to make sure you are not skipping ads in the newspaper.

"M'am, that vase in front of your TV could be used to block ads. You are going to have to move that."

Anyway, I see a great future for adblockers that render the whole page in a back buffer, and then copy it to a front buffer where it is masked by a bitmap that just has black squares where the ads used to be. That doesn't "change the original, copyrighted document", so it should be fine. And I presume putting that vase in front of your screen is still acceptable, even in Germany.

If publishers want more control, they always have the option of downloading the entire page as a bitmap.

Re: Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

#120

Post by anthk »

kstrauser wrote: post #56
brookst wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but the critical thing to know is that the ADA doesn’t mean that every assistive technology is mandated / required. Wheelchair users would benefit from dedicated elevators where their face is not butt-level with strangers in tight spaces; the ADA doesn’t mean not mandate this accommodation.

Is there an alternative technology that allows people to use websites without flashing ads?

The Lagrange (or any Gemini client) browser with gemini://gemi.dev 's News Waffle service.
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