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Ad blocking is under attack

blog.adguard.com

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Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#181

Post by javindo »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #91

The only way I see DMCA applying here is contributory infringement in enabling modification of the page. With that in mind I think the question to be answered is does a user/viewer have the right to modify a page in their own web browser or must they view the page as intended by the creators? You can get in to technicalities then like are Links creators committing contributory infringement, but I'm not sure that's he…

> Should a user be able to purposefully block parts of a page?

I have yet to see a compelling/coherent argument for why they shouldn't.

As a partially sighted user myself, I find it infuriating when web developers try to override browser behaviour/modifications (e.g. blocking pinch to zoom). If we go down a path where users can't modify pages, we are taking a huge step backwards.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#182

Post by ingenuous2 »

richardknop wrote: post #121
rewrew wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way that affiliate links can pay the bills for publishers; numbers don't ad up (otherwise everyone would do it, and no one does -- well, actually, there's extremely limited situations where it works in some consumer corners, but those situations are limited and the total amount of revenue is also very limited). And how much extra traffic are you really going to refer? Ads are sold on the thousand -- $X per…

But they would not make any money via ads from me anyways. I never click ads unless I do it accidentally by mis-clicking. So even with disabled adblocker I'd just lower their CPC (cost per click). So it costs them nothing to let me read their website with adblocker and there a tiny possible upside from me referring more traffic to them. Either way I assume people like me are a fast growing part of millennial populati…

Some sites still monetize (minimally / part of the time) with impression based schemes.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#183

Post by callalex »

nicc wrote: post #155
danarmak wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thanks, I understand better now. If Admiral enables paywalls, then I kind of agree with Admiral. If companies want to put paywalls, circumventing them is kind of like jumping the gate to see a concert for free. I always hit the back button, but publishers should be free to put up paywalls (no idea why they don't do it server-side, but that's another story). So, I guess the article or at least the title are a little s…

If your paywall can be circumvented by not making a single http request then the problem lies in bad software engineering, not the law. What happens if I'm on a slow connection and that request fails? Do they get to send the FBI after me since I'm suddenly a criminal?

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#184

Post by bkul »

Seems to me this can be handled the way the open-source community always handles such drama: fork the repo a bunch of times. I'll probably start keeping local copies of filter lists as well.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#185

Post by djsumdog »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #170
anilgulecha wrote: post #32

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 misu…

There are many cases of DMCA abuse, and it'd be nice if someone had the resources to go after these, get them fined and help set a precedent to prevent further abuse. Unfortunately, that probably cost more than it's worth.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#186

Post by jrochkind1 »

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…

That could be, cite to the law or description of it? I'm interested in learning more. What I see in the law (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512) is that a "notification of claimed infringement" must include "Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site."

Github's own guidelines to DMCA takedown notices say "Identify the copyrighted work you believe has been infringed." https://help.github.com/articles/guide-to-submitting-a-dmca-...

If the notice did not identify a work believed to have been infringed, then why did Github respond to it? Why don't they follow their own process? If the notice did identify a work being infringed, then they are probably wrong because you can't infringe a copyrighted work by listing a URL in a list. I guess actually getting damages might require proving they _knew_ that, and be generally infeasible/cost prohibitive.

There are some problems with the DMCA regime.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#187

Post by CryptoFascist »

richardknop wrote: post #121
rewrew wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way that affiliate links can pay the bills for publishers; numbers don't ad up (otherwise everyone would do it, and no one does -- well, actually, there's extremely limited situations where it works in some consumer corners, but those situations are limited and the total amount of revenue is also very limited). And how much extra traffic are you really going to refer? Ads are sold on the thousand -- $X per…

But they would not make any money via ads from me anyways. I never click ads unless I do it accidentally by mis-clicking. So even with disabled adblocker I'd just lower their CPC (cost per click). So it costs them nothing to let me read their website with adblocker and there a tiny possible upside from me referring more traffic to them. Either way I assume people like me are a fast growing part of millennial populati…

Click throughs aren't necessary for advertising to work. A lot of it is to prime your subconscious, or strengthen associations. This is why Coca Cola doesn't care if you click through. Same with car companies. When most Americans think of soda, they think of coke. If you prime their subconscious to associate soda positively with thirst, and soda is similarly associated with Coke, you've got them.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#188

Post by boot13 »

turc1656 wrote: post #179
xigency wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this alternative: disable JavaScript. It's fairly easy in any browser to create a list of websites to ignore JavaScript on.

Yep. I do it in a slightly different way. I have uMatrix installed as a browser add-on to help control for privacy, fingerprinting, security etc. But it can also be used for stuff like this. Simply disabling scripts on many sites' root domain and hitting refresh solves paywalls and adblock prevention on a fair amount of sites. For others it obviously doesn't work and nothing will load, but it works on more than you m…

uMatrix rocks. It can take a few minutes of fiddling to get a complex site working, but it's totally worthwhile.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#189

Post by cyphar »

anilgulecha wrote: post #32

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…

> From all the current summaries on this, DMCA does not apply to a line entry in easylist. A domain can be trademarked.

I believe you can trademark a domain, but trademarks are irrelevant to this discussion. The DMCA is a copyright law. The key questions are:

a) Can you have copyright over a domain? (According to https://copyright.gov, no)

b) If you could, would having a list of them constitute fair use? (Almost certainly, otherwise all search engines would be illegal.)

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