Ad blocking is under attack • Hacker News Board

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#41

Post by CWuestefeld » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

dhimes wrote: post #10

Is it illegal to claim something under DMCA when it does not in fact represent a DMCA claim?

Yes, but:

A. Nobody - NOBODY - is ever punished for violating.

B. The folks in question here think they have a colorable argument for why it really is DMCA. As linked from the OP, this is here [1]. (FWIW, I think it's silly)

[1] http://blockadblock.com/adblocking/is-adblock-plus-violating...

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#42

Post by tushar-r » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 3:28 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #18

richardknop wrote: post #4

There has been a growing trend of websites that will ask me to either: a) whitelist their site in my adblocker b) or subscribe to their monthly subscription and keep reading their site with adblocker

Which results every single time in choosing option C: the browser back button.

Typically, I find that toggling Javascript Off works - like with Wired.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#43

Post by CWuestefeld » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 3:28 PM UTC

such_a_casual wrote: post #37

[flagged]

homophobic or not, name-calling does nothing to advance the conversation.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#44

Post by exabrial » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 3:28 PM UTC

nilved wrote: post #3

The DMCA only applies to the US. Fork the repo and move on. It's time to forget about American hosting.

Sad but true :(

If we could only remove the logjam in congress right now to get some real work done... currently the two parties are deadlocked in a power struggle and have completely forgotten why they're there.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#45

Post by willglynn » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 3:29 PM UTC

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #17

gremlinsinc wrote: post #13

Wonder if we could create a git in the blockchain... where DMCA just can't exist/happen since there's no central authority to ask to take stuff down...

I think IPFS would be a better bet than block chain for this.

You might be interested to note the IPFS DMCA policy:

https://discuss.ipfs.io/tos#8

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#46

Post by such_a_casual » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 3:30 PM UTC

CWuestefeld wrote: post #43

such_a_casual wrote: post #37

[flagged]

homophobic or not, name-calling does nothing to advance the conversation.

Evidence does. Maybe you should learn the difference between just calling someone a name and providing evidence that their character is shit.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#47

Post by anilgulecha » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 3:30 PM UTC

gepoch wrote: post #35

richardknop wrote: post #4

There has been a growing trend of websites that will ask me to either: a) whitelist their site in my adblocker b) or subscribe to their monthly subscription and keep reading their site with adblocker

Call me crazy, but this seems like a pretty honorable scheme for profiting off of content. Someone put effort in to create content, and has the option of putting this kind of paywall up. There is a consumer choice made to sell their own attention by viewing ads, pay a subscription fee for the content directly, or just move on to free content elsewhere. That said, most places where you pay the subscription fee will AL…

Publically accessible content simply wants to have their search engine pie (public content) and eat it too (paywall).

Ad-blocking makes sure they have to make the hard choice of putting content behind authorization. A user-agent's job is simply to be the user's agent, and not the publisher's monetization platform.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#48

Post by pfg » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 3:30 PM UTC

romanovcode wrote: post #16

ehxcaet wrote: post #6

What's to stop people from forking off that list and transitioning to another one? Like what if ad blockers just switched to use EasyList2 instead of EasyList?

As long as code is hosted in U.S. (GitHub) the cat and mouse game will continue. If you host your repo in some other country that does not care about U.S. DMCA then it should be fine.

Other countries have copyright laws too. Most of these laws have some kind of notice-followed-by-takedown protocol, and my understanding is that in many jurisdictions, a DMCA takedown notice qualifies as such a notice. Probably the only major difference would be the amount of effort the infringed party would have to go through to enforce the takedown notice if the infringing party is non-compliant.

Disclaimer: IANAL.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#49

Post by nsebban » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 3:30 PM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #29

richardknop wrote: post #4

There has been a growing trend of websites that will ask me to either: a) whitelist their site in my adblocker b) or subscribe to their monthly subscription and keep reading their site with adblocker

I have just been blacklisting those sites for myself. I haven't missed out on anything yet.

How would you know what you missed, since you missed it ?

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#50

Post by Shank » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 3:31 PM UTC

randcraw wrote: post #26

richardknop wrote: post #4

There has been a growing trend of websites that will ask me to either: a) whitelist their site in my adblocker b) or subscribe to their monthly subscription and keep reading their site with adblocker

Unless it's The Atlantic, which blocks all article access from my iPad even though I'm a subscriber. I can read their content only with a computer-based browser (with ad blocker, of course).

I contacted them about this, actually. I subscribed to The Atlantic's digital edition expecting ad free: it turns out you need to specifically get an ad free subscription from them. The one offered on the block page is what you need or it doesn't count.

Bonus: After I asked The Atlantic, they partially refunded my subscription and a magazine arrived at my door (for my now cancelled and partially refunded digital only subscription).