German Supreme Court Rules Ad Blockers Legal (faz.net) 134
New submitter paai writes: The publishing company Axel Springer tried to ban the use of ad blockers in Germany because they endanger the digital publishing of news stories. The Oberlandesgericht Koln (Germany's Higher Regional Court of Cologne) followed this reasoning and forbade the use of ad blockers on the grounds that the use of white lists was an aggressive marketing technique. [The business model allows websites to pay a fee so that their "non aggressive" advertisements can bypass AdBlock Pro's filters. Larger companies like Google can afford to pay to have the ban lifted on their website.] The Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice or BGH) destroyed this court ruling today and judged that users had a right to filter out advertisements in web pages.
why do we have comment subjects (Score:5, Insightful)
> they endanger the digital publishing of news stories
So do eyelids. You can offer whatever content you want. That's it. That's all you can do online: Offer. Whether it's a credential-restricted content (ie premium) or simply open pages, the viewer decides whether to access. The viewer decides whether to subscribe, literally (paywall) or figuratively. Can't force buyers, can't force viewers.
Whether the selective mechanism is eyeballs or software is irrelevant.
Re:why do we have comment subjects (Score:5, Funny)
Re:why do we have comment subjects (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair their argument wasn't quite that stupid. They claimed that the pages were copyrighted works (true) and that ad-blockers were altering them, transforming them into a new unlicenced work. Kinda like if someone took a print magazine, stuck masking tape over all the adverts and sold it on as their own version.
A key point is that AdBlock Plus does actual profit from blocking ads. It takes money from advertisers to whitelist their ads and offers consultation services. So the transformed work has commercial value.
But as the court noted, this technology is different. The browser is under no obligation to render a page a certain way, and in fact often overrides the publisher's wishes with the user's preferences. Larger fonts, high contrast mode, text to speech etc. Disable image loading was a basic feature right back in the Mozaic browser days.
Plus there are many examples of similar technologies, such as the fast forward button on a DVR, the auto-volume limit system on a TV, earplugs, 3D glasses with two left lenses, photocopiers and the like.
Of course it is (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes someone think they have a *right* to run their code (JS) on my machine without my explicit permission?
Would they allow me to run my own arbitrary code on their computers? Why not?
Just don't provide content then.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Website operator: If you don't like folks blocking your ads, it's perfectly fine for you to refuse to serve them up your data.. It would be nice if you let me know why, but it's up to you.
Browsing user: You are free to decide what to block and what to accept.
I get hit by this all the time... "We detect you are running an add blocker...." Followed by a plea to turn it off... If I want the content from your site, I'll let your ads display.. But my ad blocker stays on by default and if you don't provide enough value to make it worth pausing my blocker for you, I suggest you may not be in business very long anyway.
Why did we need to tie this up in court? It was a waste of time and money doing that.
Re: websites detecting ad blockers (Score:1)
FYI: Websites usually don't bother to actually "detect" that you're using an ad blocker.
How it works: The website's static content is the message claiming that they detected that you're using an-ad blocker, and then javascript served from an adblocked domain alters the page to hide the message. (User thinks: "OMG! They know!")
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Doesn't matter to me how they do it or even if they know or not.. If I don't think their content is worth the effort, they won't be sending me anything..
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If that were true, you could just reload the page without pausing your adblocker. This does not work.
Re:Just don't provide content then.. (Score:5, Interesting)
A large German news site (Der Spiegel) recently tried that aggressively. My response was to basically stop reading it. After a few weeks they went back to the old scheme, which tells me they were bleeding traders.
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Heh, same here. I have blocked the Spiegel completely.
They've actually sued together with Axel Springer. Suits them right if they are willingly cooperating with the fucking Bild.
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They participated in that? Thanks, I did not know that. May decide to drop them after all....
bild.de went one step further (Score:2)
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They are totally entitled to do that. I just close the tab then and go elsewhere, but I agree that they are free to deal with that this way. No problem. They don't want me to read their content and want me to never return, OK. I mean, they STILL don't earn money with my eyeballs.
What I never do though is disabling my ad blocker for them then.
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At this point asking you to turn off your ad-blocker is worse than asking you to turn off your anti-virus software just to install an emoji pack. It's an insane risk, not just of malware but of being tracked, having audio blasted at you, of having your bandwidth and battery wasted...
Even if you promise to be good today, what guarantee is that there you won't turn evil tomorrow?
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Every time someone yells at you for blocking ads, calmly tell them "I'm not blocking ads, I'm blocking scripts" (or whatever verbiage you think would work best to get the point across....)
Great idea, and I'm sure they always provide a box for giving such feedback. I must look for it in future.
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It's pollution. (Score:5, Insightful)
I posit that advertisements are simply a form of information pollution. Instead of getting just the information you want, that information is polluted with contaminated by the inclusion of advertisements. There is a far better argument to be made for outlawing unrequested advertisements than there is for forcing people to see them.
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Its worse then that.
Ads have ZERO respect for your:
* Time
* Space
* Money
* Power
* Scenery -- how many fucking billboards do we need visually polluting our spaces??
I'm almost of the opinion that:
Corporate ads are immoral.
The sooner we ban these fuckers the less corporate bullshit distractions have to put up with.
I can see the future going one of two ways:
* Corporations data-mine the fuck out of you, everything fucking place you go -- blasting these ads to you the instant you step foot in a corporate space
* Or
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I think they're also immoral because they sell a lifestyle that is an unobtainable fantasy and the attempted attainment of that lifestyle is psychologically and ecologically and sometimes physically destructive. Unfortunately they're successful enough in their brain-washing that the majority of people are affected and can't see the wood for the trees.
No billboards in Hawaii (Score:2)
* Scenery -- how many fucking billboards do we need visually polluting our spaces??
That's actually one of the beautiful things about Hawaii. When I visited there were ZERO billboards anywhere. It was lovely. Now I haven't seen the entire state but I've been all over Oahu and didn't see a single one.
BTW you forgot about having zero respect for your Privacy. I have zero interest in being tracked around the internet by advertising companies.
One word solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is unlikely to happen. And besides, it would be rather trivial to write a wrapper around Lynx to make websites think they were seeing Firefox, et al. The same thing happened with LSO cookies (super cookies/Flash). I simply wrote them to /dev/null. The website believed they were being written to the drive when in actuality, they were being tossed into the bit bucket. The same can be done with vanilla cookies, though it makes everything a session cookie, with which I am more than fine. Software problems
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An even better solution would be to send actual feral Lynx' to advertisers - that would make them stop pretty quickly!
Still (Score:5, Insightful)
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Less and less true everyday. The HW is yours (for now) the firmware and software are licensed.
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Which is why everyone is making an app for everything these days.....
Source Link (Score:1)
So the source link won't let me read the article.....because I have ad block running. Ironic.
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There is no perfect solution.
In this case, NoScript + ABP and the article comes up fine, if in German.
But really, if you are blocking ads for safety, why are you still running scripts?
Of course they are! (Score:3)
I can't think of any reason they wouldn't be. After all, my computer is my property, not yours.
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German law is fu**** in the head in many regards. This is just one of them. Not that Germany is somehow exceptional in this regard.
Re:Of course they are! (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't see why anyone would have anything against this law. Yes, at least in the US anyway, there is the right to speak your mind. But there is no right to make anyone listen to what you have to say.
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what is wrong with allowing users to block adds?
It's so obvious.. (Score:2, Funny)
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I think I saw that movie [youtu.be]
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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eau ye of little humour
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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*whoooooooshshshshsh...*
Irrelevant (Score:4, Insightful)
Lawful or not, I am going to employ the most aggressive ad-blocking setup I can get my hands on. Try and stop me.
If they served ads online like printed... (Score:5, Interesting)
For the younger of the readers: When stuff was published on paper, publishers of course took responsibility for the whole of their publication, includings advertisements. If you wanted to publish an ad, you had to go through the publisher's ad department. You could not just book a slot from some 3rd-party, and have them deliver a bag of Anthrax spores or poo-poo with every newspaper.
Of course web sites could still take responsibility, and publish just still images integrated into their layout, served from their servers. But they opted to let others annoy you with all kinds of malware and distraction - and now they get punished as deserved.
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It's not hard. Either some black marker pen, some paper and glue, or a pair of scissors will easily remove the ads from magazines and newspapers. Billboards are harder and generally fall on private property, so painting those is harder. But you are free to block ads in newspapers and magazines, and it's quite easy to do so.
Anyhow, what I see happening on some sites is th
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I already black out or remove the branding on my monitors and other things if possible and buy clothes without branding on them.
That's crazy. I have no objection to companies putting their logo or name on what they have made, as long as it is not over-obtrusive, and that is not what we a talking about here.
It is useful to know who made your stuff : for example I buy a pair of walking boots and they fall apart after 3 months, so I check the maker's name and don't buy them again. OTOH another pair is lasting fine after a year (I use boots heavily) so I note the name and buy them next time. I'm not talking about big fashion brands B
Ad Blockers should me mandatory (Score:1)
They should be viewed in the same way Anti-Virus software is. Especially in today's Ad-verse.
Few of the sites place their own ads. It's mostly 3rd party ad services. It's a crazy bidding process for a lot of companies on both the ad seller end and the display side. There's plenty of broken, abusive or malware infested ads that pop up even with the big player ad services.
People should almost be required to block them.
I don't mind ads. if they aren't interstitials, don't autoplay video, don't cause 4 cor
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I'd go as far as to say if you have an adblocker you don't need antivirus.
Stealing (Score:3)
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You left out the God-given right of website operators to use 95% of your CPU to mine $coin...
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Over the last decade I've really reduced my personal exposure to advertising. Now I think I'm down to just podcast ads and billboards.
I rarely even see any ads casually. I live in a rural part of the UK and my nearest town is historic and "picturesque" - no bill-boards or other large signs allowed - and I don't go in very often anyway. I never watch commercial TV except by pre-recording and skipping the ads. I don't take any paper media and I use an ad-blocker. I must sometimes see ads on the sides of lorries [trucks], and within shop windows, but I only go to shops with a list aleady of what I am going to buy.
The ads I see are when I de
Can't RTFA (Score:1)
Because in addition to blocking ads I block JavaScript.
Yet the article was blocked for me... (Score:2)
....because I have An Ad blocker on. The Irony of it all...
Not the highest German court (Score:5, Informative)
The translation "Supreme Court" is misleading. The BGH is the second highest German court. The highest one is the BVG, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, i.e. the court deciding things regarding the German constitution. The BHG is however the highest court you can come up to using appeals for concrete things. The BVG only takes constitutional stuff and may decide to ignore you.
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If we are going to nitpick, it is actually the BVerfG, not the BVG, simply because there is also the Bundesverwaltungsgericht, that would have the same initials otherwise ;-)
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Correct.
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Actually, German typing rules still allow the use of en "oe" if you do not have the Umlaut on the Keyboard. (I do not have umlauts, as the ineptitude of the designers of the German keyboard layout has really messed it up. I use the "EU" layout.) It is surprising how many Germans do no know that tough and complain. "Koln" is definitely wrong though.
If theres a product we need (Score:1)
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First party ads (and advertorial) are even worse: They force these sites to compromise their independence by doing deals with product makers and sellers, rather than let a third-party handle this. And you still have all this independent material surrounded by spin.
So what's the best way to fund professional independent media if not through ads?
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Infection from ads is a lot rarer than you imagine. It makes headlines when it happens. Almost all infections are the result of phishing and hacking.
Contrast this with the susceptibility of all but the most ethical and wealthy publishers to being in the pocket of advertisers with which they deal directly. And even the best will pump out corrupting information to all if they employ "native advertising" (ads masquerading as articles).
No, first-party ads are no solution.
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Could still be overthrown (Score:4, Informative)
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they will now go to the German Federal Constitutional Court. So the ruling could still be overthrown. ...
The federal constitution court will most likely simply dismiss the case, as it is in no relevance to the constitution
also (Score:2)
Seriously Axel Springer? (Score:2)
I don't block ads but I rarely ever see them (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't block Ads, I don't particularly care if a website shows ads.
What I don't like is
Annoying animated GIFs
Auto-loading videos with audio.
Spyware that attempts to track my every move.
Ghostery blocks the latter and this pretty much results in the former also being blocked because these scumbags can't resist spying on everyone.
Bad translation (Score:1)
Köln != Cologne
How gracious of them (Score:2)
How kind of them to deign to let me decide what I hear and see!
Re:Just The Facts (Score:5, Insightful)
Just watch a group of 2 year olds interact
Most folks grow up and recognise that unbridled capitalism works about as well as it did when they were two.
You might want to look to see if you can find patterns of behaviour in children that exhibit co-operative, almost socialist behaviour. It exists, just as surely as selfishness exists. They tend to be phases of development and say less about society than you seem to think.
The problem is socialism doesn't work for the very reason why 2 year olds act like they do, folks want more but don't want to work for it
Some people are selfish. They want more for themselves, even if it costs other people something. Other people are selfless. They aren't satisfied unless they know that everyone is doing OK. Most people are a mix of both traits, and to a degree capitalism/socialism align with those traits.
It's human nature and it cannot be suppressed enough for socialism to work
Pure socialism, sure. But then pure capitalism fails in similar ways, for much the same reasons (selfishness of a few). Your simplistic comparison fails to account for the reality that hard-work is not equally rewarded; that early access to capital creates monopolies that even passively create too high a barrier to entry for new 'hard workers' and that actively seek to perpetuate their power and ignores the tragedy of the commons.
It's human nature to co-operate as well. We're social animals. History is filled with examples of co-operation just as much as it is filled with competition. It's almost like we're animals with complex social interactions.
Capitalism, moderated and regulated and with strong social policies is a fantastic system and those societies that follow this model have some of the highest standards of living for their citizens in the world. The mix of capitalist and socialist policies avoids the weaknesses of each and takes advantage of the strengths of both.
Those are concepts that many adults don't understand these days
The 'American Dream', social mobility and the idea that hard work will result in bettering oneself and one's children has been becoming less true for some time. The US has some of the worst social mobility of any first world country. If some people are refusing to buy into the idea that hard work pays off, maybe they have a better understanding of how hard work is repaid at quite different rates depending on a wide range of factors, including race, socio economic background, educational opportunities etc.
If you want to understand why more people, today, seem to not buy in to the old 'hard work will result in a better life' maybe you should look beyond simplistic stories about two year old behaviour and selfishness. Maybe the income disparity in the US might also clue you in as to why some people have decided that the system that seems to have been good to you isn't one that's likely to be as good for them.
But nah. Social responsibility = socialism = evil is so much simpler.
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Words mean things.. Socialism is a form of government that is, at it's core, the government controlling all resources and doling them out to everybody. "To Each according to their need." and all. Your definition is just the slippery slope that leads to socialism as a form of government.
My point remains, socialism doesn't work because people are going to naturally look out for their own self interest. You can see this in the failed governments of history which where based on socialism. Or even current g
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Indeed, words mean things - so why are you trying to make up your own definition of socialism out of thin air? Socialism == workers owning the means of production. Not that hard to understand, really.
FTFY. Iran,
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The rewriting of history is strong with this one.. The ills in Venezuela are NOT from direct US intervention or externally applied policies. They clearly are from the implementation of socialism and government mismanagement of "the means of production" which always happens. The rest of your examples are just as invalid.
Socialism also means: " (in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism."
So... The end state of socialism is communism
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Your typical capitalist projection is noted.
As is your gaslighting. [msnbc.com]
Mismanaged to the point their GDP tripped while lifting millions out of poverty. Like I said the first time.
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Sorry, I forgot that there are no capitalist countries on planet earth.
No true scotsman. By the same argument there have never been any socialist countries, either. I still think that it's possible to look at the examples that have existed and extrapolate from them. Certainly the GP seemed to be discussing capitalism and socialism in that way and I replied in that spirit.
If you have a specific criticism of something I said, please make your point.
Handwaving about a lack of 'true' capitalism is noise.