Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 273 posts

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

#121

Post by jcranmer »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #71
Fiahil wrote: post #51

> The judges took note of the fact that Spiegel could have done something about ad-blockers. For instance, it could have shut ad-blocking users out from the Web content, linked advertising directly to the website's HTML I don't think that's a good idea. Doing exactly that would mean: the ad auction has to be closed and content injected server-side into the HTML page before sending the first byte to clients. And even…

>the ad auction has to be closed Absolutely not. It would take some more time for your ad campaign fine tuning to apply, and to count clicks, that's all. Ad networks would install their boxes in datacenters and hosting providers' networks. Ads would cost a little more. >content injected server-side into the HTML page before sending the first byte to clients Injected, yes, but why before sending the first byte? >it al…

> I'm sure WhatWG will quickly find a technical solution to this problem too. Say, a special HTML tag attribute that tells the browser "treat content inside as third-party", which eventually will be exposed to ad blockers.

I believe the tag you're looking for is .

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

#122

Post by jamiequint »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #71
Fiahil wrote: post #51

> The judges took note of the fact that Spiegel could have done something about ad-blockers. For instance, it could have shut ad-blocking users out from the Web content, linked advertising directly to the website's HTML I don't think that's a good idea. Doing exactly that would mean: the ad auction has to be closed and content injected server-side into the HTML page before sending the first byte to clients. And even…

>the ad auction has to be closed Absolutely not. It would take some more time for your ad campaign fine tuning to apply, and to count clicks, that's all. Ad networks would install their boxes in datacenters and hosting providers' networks. Ads would cost a little more. >content injected server-side into the HTML page before sending the first byte to clients Injected, yes, but why before sending the first byte? >it al…

"Ad networks would install their boxes in datacenters and hosting providers' networks. Ads would cost a little more."

You're vastly over-simplifying the technological problems involved with site-serving ads. The bids don't come from "ad networks" - I also assume you mean ad exchanges not ad networks? - they come from a federated collections of bidders (generally called DSPs or other custom bidders, which there are hundreds or thousands of). They also rely on extensive client-side cookie matching in order to determine who the user is and how valuable they are. Not only that, but then the ad itself lives on a different server from the one doing the bidding, and is often generated dynamically based on that specific user as well.

You can't just dump these either; real-time bids from many sources, user-based advertising, and dynamic advertising, are some of the key contributors to the continuously increasing value of remnant ad placements over the last 5-10 years.

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

#123

Post by EpicEng »

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…

Has nothing to do with ideology. Origin is simply a better blocker in that it more effectively blocks ads. Also has the bonus that it's not in bed with certain advertisers.

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

#124

Post by WJW »

hueving wrote: post #115
dao- wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the free market can regulate this just fine Except that it doesn't. Not everybody is expert enough to evaluate the risks of trading their data. Even if everybody was an expert, Google and Facebook are quasi-monopolies that are hard to avoid due to network effect and peer pressure. They play major roles in modern society so regulating them /in some ways/ seems warranted.

I have never experienced peer pressure to use Google and have been asked to message someone on Facebook maybe twice. It sounds like you just like both services a lot and want the government to step in so you can have your cake and eat it too.

The same could be said about mobile phones and electricity though, they're not compulsory to use but pretty universal (and regulated). Certainly Whatsapp and Google Search have so much marketshare in my country (Netherlands) that they might as well be utilities.

Something like a common carrier model might be better for society, where the bundling of some services is deemed to be too monopolistic in combination but not as separate entities. Sort of like Rockefeller owning both oil production and (almost) all the transportation facilities and used the transportation to squeeze out fellow producers.

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

#125

Post by koolba »

guntars wrote: post #119
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…

Because it's not just about showing an ad to the user, it's about knowing which user to show that ad. The ad networks track you across the web, and in the process learn a great deal about your demographics and interests. This alows businesses to target you specifically. Spiegel can only track you across their own site which might not tell them much about you, making the ad space less valuable.

> Because it's not just about showing an ad to the user, it's about knowing which user to show that ad. The ad networks track you across the web, and in the process learn a great deal about your demographics and interests. This alows businesses to target you specifically.

Sure if you're not clearing your cookies, obfuscating your User-Agent, and rotating your IP address regularly. All that aside, the real baseline of comparison isn't a targeted ad, it's no ad at all. It doesn't matter how great third party ad networks are at tracking users, if their third partyness is what makes them so easy to block then they're going to go the way of the dodo.

> Spiegel can only track you across their own site which might not tell them much about you, making the ad space less valuable.

I wonder if that even matters. They already know what article I'm reading and possibly what other articles I've read (again assuming logged in / tracking cookies / etc). Should be more than enough. I really think a steady income stream of un-blockable but not quite as effective ads will win out over blockable but hyper targeted ones.

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

#126

Post by username223 »

ZoeZoeBee wrote: post #109
username223 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...if you're developing the browser is not your main energy drain. This has not been my experience, but maybe that's just because I use an ancient text editor (Emacs). If my several-year-old computer with 8GB of RAM goes into a paging frenzy, the browser is usually at fault. Emacs may be using a few hundred megabytes at most. As for privacy concerns, it's your call. Apple sells expensive hardware; Google sells surv…

Can't vouch for your ancient machine or text editor, but writing and compiling on a modern machine with intellisense, the editor uses a lot more energy than the browser https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~weimer/p/weimer-asplos2014.pdf

This paper didn't seem to deal specifically with compilers, editors, browsers, or intellisense. But I'm curious what counts as "modern" -- how often should I replace my personal machine, or what should its specs be, so people like you don't call it "ancient"? (I already know that I should be using LightTable or Atom or IntelliJ to be "modern" in terms of editors.)

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

#127

Post by skybrian »

ryuuchin wrote: post #107
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…

> That's only if people agree with your ideology. You don't even have to do that. It behaves exactly the same as ABP if you use the same filter lists. It's just also happens to be more efficient than ABP.

It's not the same. Advertisers can negotiate with AdBlock Plus about what reasonable advertising should be. If we all choose our own block lists there is nobody for them to negotiate with. The war between ad blockers and advertisers continues forever.

That's not to say AdBlock Plus does a great job (I don't know) but some people think collective bargaining is a good thing.

For more read about countervailing power.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervailing_power

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

#128

Post by a3n »

dawnerd wrote: post #113
lttlrck wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was also mentioned in the article. ABP still allows you to block those whitelisted ads.

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.

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

#129

Post by irq-1 »

guntars wrote: post #119
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…

Because it's not just about showing an ad to the user, it's about knowing which user to show that ad. The ad networks track you across the web, and in the process learn a great deal about your demographics and interests. This alows businesses to target you specifically. Spiegel can only track you across their own site which might not tell them much about you, making the ad space less valuable.

You're right that it doesn't work for the advertisers. It also isn't a technical solution: ad-blockers don't just use domain names; they also block based on tags, ids and css classes, etc..

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

#130

Post by a3n »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #74

IMHO, by choosing to provide their content as an HTML data stream via HTTP to the user, "Der SPIEGEL" implicitly allows to consume this content in whichever way the user sees fit, as HTML is simply a markup language that can be interpreted in various ways, and could even be read in a text editor. By trying to force the user to consume this data through a specific channel (e.g. through a standard-compliant browser wit…

> IMHO, by choosing to provide their content as an HTML data stream via HTTP to the user, "Der SPIEGEL" implicitly allows to consume this content in whichever way the user sees fit, as HTML is simply a markup language that can be interpreted in various ways, and could even be read in a text editor.

Wouldn't forcing to consume ads discriminate against people who use text-based browsers, and visually impaired people who use readers for that condition?

Post reply on HN