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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?

#141

Post by sterlind »

sneak wrote: post #57
drunner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it make sense? If I buy a book I'm entitled to rip out pages and black marker words. What's the difference to removing text or images of my choice while viewing a website?

It’s an unauthorized modification (and production of a derivative work) of a copyrighted work.

it's perfectly legal to modify any copyrighted work. it's only illegal for you to distribute copies.

so it should be legal to install an ad block plugin, but not legal to run an ad-stripping proxy.

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

#142

Post by _imnothere »

guerrilla wrote: post #9
mortenjorck wrote: post #3

> We sincerely hope that Germany does not become the second jurisdiction (after China) to ban ad blockers. Given the other restrictions on internet use in China, it should have come as no surprise, but I had no idea this was the law of the land there.

Is it? Can we can confirmation?

Here's a few links:

- https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/chinese-users-cant-use-ad-bl...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/tie7un/ublock...

- https://segmentfault.com/a/1190000041587638/en

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

#143

Post by ddmf »

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…

I concur, some websites are so unusable now with the tiny portion of content surrounded by adverts.

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

#144

Post by visarga »

agent327 wrote: post #119

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. T…

This law is based on the idea that a restaurant patron should be forced to eat everything on their plate, or else it is infringing on the IP of the cook. "Sir, we made the salad with onions and you skipped them, we need to forcefully shove them down your throat"

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

#145

Post by visarga »

andy99 wrote: post #39

Much like the old "piracy" nonsense, I wonder if banning ad blockers would be a net gain for advertisers (if it was possible). Personally I wouldn't go to a site that had any remotely intrusive advertising, even if I wanted to I get too distracted to read the real content. Less views means fewer network effects - for a small example, fewer people posting and discussing on sites like HN or reddit. And therefore less p…

I would rather only see websites without ads, or that explicitly allow ad blocking. Websites with ads are shit anyway, clickbait and slop all the way down. The whole internet has been enshittified by the battles for user attention. Nothing of value is lost if we never see these sites again.

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

#147

Post by danudey »

kstrauser wrote: post #110
danudey wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most websites use ad networks, and typically have no idea which ads are being shown on their sites unless users complain about something egregious; as such, it tends to be the case that telling an ad network "here's a rectangle for you to show something" doesn't really affect a site's journalistic integrity. If a site that reviews televisions was contracting directly with Sony to show ads then yes, that's definitely…

But random JavaScript and GIFs from who knows where, with no transparency about how they got there and whether the owner is getting paid to run that specific ad, are no less bad. Did they sell my data to target me personally? Is Acer paying them to run ads on a page about HP laptops? Who knows. That’s completely opaque and untrustworthy today. You have to assume all in-page ads are compromising today because they lar…

Oh of course, I was only discussing from a purely editorial integrity perspective. From a practical perspective it's all awful and I hate it, and is one of the main reasons I use content blockers.
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