> the court nevertheless preserved Axel Springer’s right to exclude users with an activated adblocker from accessing its content
I actually think this is fair, and I say that as someone who has been using adblockers since the dawn of time and couldn't imagine using a webbrowser without it.
I believe the court has decided absolutely sanely for one: it should be my choice as an internet user whether I want to be exposed ot ads or not. In my case: no way, Jose. And to those who make the argument that a lot of what the internet offers todays would be unsustainable without the ad revenue, I say that although you may think that you cannot live without this or that or the other on the internet, let me reassure you: you can. Everything on the internet is expendable. Trust me. Yes, even TikTok, son. Heck, most of what you're in love with today wasn't even there 10 years ago.
It may come in as a surprise to some but yes, you can have a life without the internet. And to be honest, I'd rather lose some conveniences if the alternative is this absolute insanity that is today's web without an adblocker.
But if content providers do not want to give me their stuff unless I watch their ads, I think that's fine. It's your right to do that. Just don't think that I am going to turn off the adblocker for you as a consequence. Much more likely, I'm just going to go somewhere else for my kick.
> But if content providers do not want to give me their stuff unless I watch their ads, I think that's fine.
Exactly. I've got a right to block ads if I can figure out how to achieve that technologically. But they've got a right to not give me content if they can figure out, technologically, that I'm blocking their ads.
> But if content providers do not want to give me their stuff unless I watch their ads, I think that's fine. It's your right to do that. Just don't think that I am going to turn off the adblocker for you as a consequence. Much more likely, I'm just going to go somewhere else for my kick.
To me, I think this is the more salient set of points. I accept that a company wants to show me ads to pay for the content they're serving. I accept that they may refuse to let me access content if I don't first view/consume the ads. And I also accept that if I am not happy with that specific arrangement, I am free to go elsewhere.
What I do refuse to accept is that once they have sent me the data that they have any right to control how I consume it. If you want to prevent me from accessing your site unless I view ads, you have a very simple way to do that -- have your webserver return an error code unless I have viewed the ads. But once you have sent me the bytes, in my eyes, you lose any right to dictate how those bytes are processed or blackholed.
If something is not sustainable without ads that seems to imply that people are not willing to pay for it. If people aren't willing to pay for it then I'm not sure it is a good business model.
Regardless of the consequences I'd rather see an ad free internet. If that means Youtube can't exist and Facebook can't exist and Google can't exist then so be it.
Yeah it's pretty simple, the world doesn't owe anyone a business model (something that's forgotten way to often) but nor are we owed free content. My understanding of a transaction is that there needs to be a "meeting of the minds" - if I value what you want to give me more than the price you want, we have trade and everybody wins.
Unfortunately the ad economy is closer to begging. The consumer doesn't value what's being provided and the provider somehow tries to guilt or force users into "paying". And overall everyone loses - the content provider doesn't get the value they want for their content and the consumer doesn't get something they value. The only winner is advertising intermediaries. That unfortunately is the system we've set up.
There is one major aspect that I find troubling with companies blocking users with an activated adblocker. It removes the illusion that they are providing a service without any expectation for payment.
Tax law, at least where I live, is very explicit on this. If a company provide goods or services with the expectation of payment, be that as a good or service, then that transaction trigger value added tax. Free samples and gratis products do not trigger this, including those that has advertisement, because those do not have an expectation of payment.
In general it is the company that is selling a product that must manage payment of value added tax to consumers within the country, and the government has soft blocked imports from companies when that tax has not been paid.
I don't know German law around value added tax so they might have different exemption rules. I do wonder however if the court acknowledged in the Axel Springer case that the viewing of advertisement is an payment for providing content.
There is a grey area though when a company becomes the defacto monopoly over a service. Google and Microsoft email both have history of blocking email from other providers and have created a landscape where trying to run your own email server is a nightmare. But should they be able to refuse service to you if you block ads?
"It may come in as a surprise to some but yes, you can have a life without the internet."
Maybe even more of a life without it.
There is one fact that I learned immediately when I started using the internet in 1986 and then the www in 1993.
There will always be an endless supply of free "content" on the internet and www. With or without advertising. The ads did not even start until 1994 or so. There was an internet without ads. A non-commercial internet. That's what I signed up for.
That people today are paying for multiple "subscriptions" to view stuff on the internet is amazing but it will not make the free stuff disappear. It will not stop non-commercial use of the network.
The internet did not come into existence for the purpose of advertising. But the companies exerting oversized control over it, that is all they are interested in.
I mostly agree with this in principle, but an important point is that, when you squint, the technology behind blocking ad blockers starts looking very similar to the technology behind blocking web scrapers. If you're capable of programmatically scraping content without a human user viewing ads, then you're capable of displaying the content to a user without the ads. So any solution for preventing ad blocking implies that the content can't be scraped programmatically.
I know that web scrapers carry some negative connotations, but keep in mind that search engines like Google couldn't possibly exist without web scraping. A world where you can't block ads or scrape content for indexing is a world where only a few preordained companies have the ability to build search engines. Proposals like Web Environment Integrity (WEI) accomplish two goals for Google: they make ad blocking more difficult, and they kick down the ladder to prevent new innovative search engines from emerging. There are already many websites which only allow-list Google's IPs for indexing, and I think we should be very hesitant about anything that could further entrench their monopoly on search even if we support content creators being compensated through ads.
> Everything on the internet is expendable. Trust me. Yes, even TikTok, son. Heck, most of what you're in love with today wasn't even there 10 years ago.
This is unfortunately patently not true anymore. As the internet has gotten more intertwined in our lives, so has into the gvmt, corporations, society, etc. For example banking, for using my bank I need an internet connection. I literally work on the internet, but even if I didn't I cannot imagine any of the main jobs I would be remotely qualified to do that doesn't need internet, so I'd be back to minimum-skill minimum-wage jobs. Which wouldn't afford me my current home, and from which I'd be kicked out of the country I live at since I wouldn't qualify for either the job type or minimum salary.
Note: I assume by "expendable" you mean "can be avoided without a huge impact in life", I _could_ live without internet but I'd also need to be working a minimum wage, wouldn't afford my home, and probably would even lose my visa.
I like it because it forces some decisions on various parties.
Don't want to look at ads online? Block them but realize you yourself may be blocked from certain places.
Don't want to allow ad-blocked users? Okay, but you lose those users unless you engage with the reason they are blocking ads and either give them an alternative or convince them to greenlist you.
>let me reassure you: you can. Everything on the internet is expendable.
Every single thing on the internet is expendable. The internet as a whole is arguably not. I think that's where the rub lies.
>It may come in as a surprise to some but yes, you can have a life without the internet.
really depends on the person. I would not have my current career nor WFH role without the internet. It doesn't mean I can't "live", but it would cause a radical enough shift in my life that I'd essentially become a different person. I'll leave that answer to the philosophers.
I would go full Luddite and swear off YouTube, Twitch, etc if I absolutely had to watch ads to use their services. I already do this with twitch - once the unblockable ads start playing I close the tab and spend my time elsewhere, with nothing of value lost. There is literally no content that is worth being exposed to ads to access, from my point of view. I realise that many others don’t share such militant views on this, but for me it’s non negotiable.
I’m pretty much with you on this almost word for word.
I can’t have my cake and eat it too, and I’m fine with that.
Maybe if at a certain point everything is locked down with the help of device attestation/DRM I might change my tune, but even then I’m sure there will be alternatives for me, whether online or offline.
> Heck, most of what you're in love with today wasn't even there 10 years ago.
I wasn't in love with my girlfriend / kids / etc before I met her either but I wouldn't want to go without her just because there was once a time where it was true. That seems like weak argument.
While I agree with you, I also am not sure what I should think about nearly every news article on here has a link that someone has posted that circumvents the paywall that has been put up prevent people from accessing the content without paying (either directly or via ads). Is it okay to use an adblocker and not pay for a subscription, but also circumvent walls so I can still access the content?
Christ, this is why I don't even browse the web on my phone. I email myself reminders to look things up when I get home to my laptop. The absence of adblockers makes it unbearable. Three different videos selling three different products unrelated to my query all trying to talk over each other? Kill me please.
> Just don't think that I am going to turn off the adblocker for you as a consequence. Much more likely, I'm just going to go somewhere else for my kick.
You’ll be saving them money (less infrastructure costs, like bandwith) without giving a penny to their competitors (because you’re using an adblocker); actually now you’re probably a net loss for their competitors.
So they’re happy to lose you, I guess?
We’re headed towards a paywalled Internet, I know first hand. And I hate it.
Part of the problem is the terminology 'adblocker' is outdated and essentially incorrect.
Ads aren't ads. They're trackers, viruses, malware, scams. Even video ads on Youtube, whilst not vectors of viruses or malware, they're advertising literal scams and YouTube are responding saying these ads are 'within' policy guidelines.
As I've said a few times before (in various ways), browsing the internet without an 'ad blocker' is like running Windows in the 90's / 00's without anti-virus software when you're a serial downloader of interesting programs / executables (like I was); it's negligent, you're asking for trouble.
The advertising industry, Google, Facebook, etc. are hiding behind the terminology "advertising" because it makes it sound a lot more palatable than what the reality is, as I said above: tracking, malware, viruses, scams.
If it was just advertising, then I'd be much less rabidly agressive in my defense of blocking it: Annoying is a long way separated from Dangerous.
Advertising, as it has evolved on the Internet, is Dangerous.
I'll add that on top of that the ads use so many resources in the browser, CPU/RAM, that it slows many otherwise great budget computers to a standstill. And if you're on a low-res screen like me (1280x720) the ads often overwrite half the content or make the site completely unnavigable.
Additionally, the amount of bandwidth the ads use is enormous, especially when they include self-playing video, and people who have government-issued phones in the USA (poor people) only get 15GB of bandwidth on most plans, and that is burned up within a couple of days due to this.
>Ads aren't ads. They're trackers, viruses, malware, scams. Even video ads on Youtube, whilst not vectors of viruses or malware, they're advertising literal scams and YouTube are responding saying these ads are 'within' policy guidelines.
>If it was just advertising, then I'd be much less rabidly agressive in my defense of blocking it: Annoying is a long way separated from Dangerous.
This really needs to be emphasized more, because the problem is that these so-called "ads" aren't just ads anymore as you said.
If they were just ads, sure they would be annoying (or hilarious if they are made well!) but ultimately not something that most of us would feel a religious desire to block out of our lives.
But no, they aren't just ads anymore. They are malicious in their intent and harmful in their contents. If it's not the "ads" trojan horsing malware onto our computers, it's their contents directing us towards scams and harmful activities. That dangerous bullshit deserves to be blocked out with extreme prejudice.
Adblocking is the anti-virus of the 2010s and '20s, it's a defensive measure to keep ourselves safe.
I subscribe to a magazine. It has ads. I pay my butler to cut out the ads. Is that illegal? Now I have a robot butler doing the exact same thing. Is that illegal?
The web server is serving you content. Your ad blocker is a robot butler cutting the ads out of the documents you're receiving.
At the end of the day, you have no "right" to a site's content. You have the right to use an adblocker, and a site that depends on its revenue has the right to refuse to serve you.
I’d happily put up with banner ads on websites, it’s the mechanism that serves that ad that I find contentious and is the reason I personally use an ad blocker.
> While user freedom means that users are able to use the tools that they wish to when browsing the World Wide Web, the court nevertheless preserved Axel Springer’s right to exclude users with an activated adblocker from accessing its content. This can be understood as an approval on the use of adblock detection tools by companies like Axel Springer.
This sounds fine to me. If you want to put your content on the internet for all to see, great, but I'm not going to let my browser render the ads that you suggest that it render. If you want to put the content behind a paywall or otherwise block ad blockers, fine, I'll pay if it's worth my money or I won't if it's not. But I'm not going to turn my ad blocker off just because content publishers whine about it.
As long as malvertising(1) exists, adblockers are basic security hygiene. You wouldn’t click a random link, so why would you allow an ad server to execute arbitrary code on your computer?
I can't find the original source, but there are many articles that claim that FBI recommends ad blockers, the ad networks made the internet unsafe so we need to setup ad blockers on our and our family computers.
This piqued my interest and lo and behold they do!
"Use an ad blocking extension when performing internet searches. Most internet browsers allow a user to add extensions, including extensions that block advertisements. These ad blockers can be turned on and off within a browser to permit advertisements on certain websites while blocking advertisements on others."
Right to use Adblockers also means the remote server has the right to force you to download and display the ads as a condition of getting the content.
Thus begins the arms race. The client can simulate all that happening, but ultimately not actually present the ads to the user (possibly including a blank screen with a timer for enforced video ads).
Then the server starts forcing client attestation to make sure their scripts run in a trusted environment.
Except, the one side has to pay for the dev work on their own proprietary system, the other side is a horde of volunteers. At a certain point it isn't worthwhile, easier to just accept that some people aren't going to cooperate
IMHO this is just a small part of a bigger struggle -- the right to use the browser of your choice (and thus one that also presents content the way you want), and by extension, the rest of your software and hardware environment.
Content is paid with your eyeballs or with money. If you're not willing to pay with your eyeballs, then you shouldn't get the content. I think that's fair.
In China where copyright laws aren't enforced, there's simply no economic incentive for producers to create content...let's not go there.
Advertisers like to claim that their content is speech. While this might be true I’d classify advertising as attempted manipulation.
The advertiser only wins when they convince me to do something I wouldn’t have done otherwise. Often that thing is not in my best interest. Buying a new car is great for advertisers. It’s a terrible financial decision for me.
Advertisers succeed by manipulating consumer behavior in ways that harm the consumer. Protecting myself from harmful manipulation is not only my right but I’d be an idiot not to do it.
Companies that prevent me from protecting myself from manipulation earn my ire. Fighting against Adblock makes you a bad company, and people who do it are doing a bad thing. What do we call people who do bad things? I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
The way I see it, is that I have a choice whether to pay* for ads that are forced on me without my consent, or whether to block that advertising content.
The website owner has the choice to allow me to see his website ad-free, or to refuse my access to his website altogether.
That's OK. I can survive if I don't see his website at all. OTOH, if he blocks out too many of us, there won't be sufficient eyes on his advertising anyway.
* pay for the ads I see? Yes. I have many times been in the situation where I had a small monthly quota of data such that my total data allowance per day was only 60 MB. It doesn't take many 5 MB advertisements to complete use up my meagre daily data allowance.
I think it should be obvious that I have a right to decide whether server-imposed JavaScript and CSS will run on my computer. If I only want HTML to render, that’s my prerogative. And if a site’s HTML isn’t useable without CSS and JS, then that site is defective and I’ll black hole its domain on local DNS.
If this breaks websites’ business models, that’s their problem, not mine. I don’t have bareback sex with strangers and I don’t visit random websites without uBlock Origin.
> According to Axel Springer, Eyeo’s business model constituted: ... a violation of freedom of the press
Wah, cry me a river. Some corporation making hundreds of millions of dollars thinks it has a right to run malware on people's computers, just so the executives can line their pockets with more money. Maybe they should spend some of those millions and figure out a less stupid monetization strategy instead of trying to dream up a bunch of laws that suit them
This feels off to me. I feel entitled to use an adblocker, but I also feel the site should be entitled to make corresponding choice their side.
The reality is much of the web is ad funded, so some sort of ugly compromise is necessary. Allowing both sides to do as they please seems more fair than holding a gun to corporates head and telling them no.
That said I reckon news is an exception - it's way too centralized and way to crucial to democracy to let all the big news orgs move as a unit. The way they all moved as a unit & some lead the charge on paywalls knowingly taking a hit felt way too coordinated for my liking.
I ignore them as they aren't terribly targeting, and I'm not an impulse buyer based on some pic of an overly happy smiley person.
Inasmuch as I'm not obligated to fund the advertisers and companies I see in the streets, the same is true of the net.
I owe them nothing - especially as they try and track me. I leave my phone in the car when i go shopping so location isn't a thing they can utilise against me, which they would if possible.
Having said that, i am looking after a friends dog at the moment. I walked past a store that sells royal canine a few days ago... got an ad for dog food on amazon, and in my gmail.
Coincidence?
Possibly.
Am i nervous?
Absolutely you should be too.
Streets are a public space. Yet even there access to the street remains free, and ads tend to be on private property. Most of the Internet would not qualify. Though I suppose it could be argued parts are much like a public square.
I'd also raise the issue if liability, for when that advertisement is a scam or a vehicle for malware Javascript or buffer-overflowing media.
If I have some kind of legal obligation to permit their system to do stuff on my computer, then surely they must have have some level of liability for what that stuff does or enables.
Unfortunately devs don't get a vote, we're just too much of a minority. Remember IE6? It took google literally firing all guns to de-throne it, and they did it because they injected a message with every google search to use chrome.
Unfortunately... i don't know what we can do, even if the entire dev community gives google the finger.
How you choose to render bits that are served to you is as fundamentally your right as whether you choose to leave your eyes open, or read text that has been put in front of you.
Moreover, your right to not be spied on for you browser configuration is the same as your right to not have your irises tracked. This isn't even close.
i have a straightforward principle for using the Web and serving a part of it: both parties have the right to serve and consume the content as they choose to.
all this shaming by content owners who tend to continue pushing more intrusive ads is being rather unfair. at the same time, i don't see any issues with them witholding access to content if we try to bypass their intended use.
today serving content at a reasonable level has never been this cheap. if you serve a 2MB webpage for 500 word piece, then it serves you right when you complain about how much it costs you to run it. using that argument to moral policing only goes so far.
[+] [-] kleiba|2 years ago|reply
I actually think this is fair, and I say that as someone who has been using adblockers since the dawn of time and couldn't imagine using a webbrowser without it.
I believe the court has decided absolutely sanely for one: it should be my choice as an internet user whether I want to be exposed ot ads or not. In my case: no way, Jose. And to those who make the argument that a lot of what the internet offers todays would be unsustainable without the ad revenue, I say that although you may think that you cannot live without this or that or the other on the internet, let me reassure you: you can. Everything on the internet is expendable. Trust me. Yes, even TikTok, son. Heck, most of what you're in love with today wasn't even there 10 years ago.
It may come in as a surprise to some but yes, you can have a life without the internet. And to be honest, I'd rather lose some conveniences if the alternative is this absolute insanity that is today's web without an adblocker.
But if content providers do not want to give me their stuff unless I watch their ads, I think that's fine. It's your right to do that. Just don't think that I am going to turn off the adblocker for you as a consequence. Much more likely, I'm just going to go somewhere else for my kick.
[+] [-] crazygringo|2 years ago|reply
Exactly. I've got a right to block ads if I can figure out how to achieve that technologically. But they've got a right to not give me content if they can figure out, technologically, that I'm blocking their ads.
This all seems very fair to me.
[+] [-] genocidicbunny|2 years ago|reply
To me, I think this is the more salient set of points. I accept that a company wants to show me ads to pay for the content they're serving. I accept that they may refuse to let me access content if I don't first view/consume the ads. And I also accept that if I am not happy with that specific arrangement, I am free to go elsewhere.
What I do refuse to accept is that once they have sent me the data that they have any right to control how I consume it. If you want to prevent me from accessing your site unless I view ads, you have a very simple way to do that -- have your webserver return an error code unless I have viewed the ads. But once you have sent me the bytes, in my eyes, you lose any right to dictate how those bytes are processed or blackholed.
[+] [-] izzydata|2 years ago|reply
Regardless of the consequences I'd rather see an ad free internet. If that means Youtube can't exist and Facebook can't exist and Google can't exist then so be it.
[+] [-] andy99|2 years ago|reply
Unfortunately the ad economy is closer to begging. The consumer doesn't value what's being provided and the provider somehow tries to guilt or force users into "paying". And overall everyone loses - the content provider doesn't get the value they want for their content and the consumer doesn't get something they value. The only winner is advertising intermediaries. That unfortunately is the system we've set up.
[+] [-] belorn|2 years ago|reply
Tax law, at least where I live, is very explicit on this. If a company provide goods or services with the expectation of payment, be that as a good or service, then that transaction trigger value added tax. Free samples and gratis products do not trigger this, including those that has advertisement, because those do not have an expectation of payment.
In general it is the company that is selling a product that must manage payment of value added tax to consumers within the country, and the government has soft blocked imports from companies when that tax has not been paid.
I don't know German law around value added tax so they might have different exemption rules. I do wonder however if the court acknowledged in the Axel Springer case that the viewing of advertisement is an payment for providing content.
[+] [-] mission_failed|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1vuio0pswjnm7|2 years ago|reply
Maybe even more of a life without it.
There is one fact that I learned immediately when I started using the internet in 1986 and then the www in 1993.
There will always be an endless supply of free "content" on the internet and www. With or without advertising. The ads did not even start until 1994 or so. There was an internet without ads. A non-commercial internet. That's what I signed up for.
That people today are paying for multiple "subscriptions" to view stuff on the internet is amazing but it will not make the free stuff disappear. It will not stop non-commercial use of the network.
The internet did not come into existence for the purpose of advertising. But the companies exerting oversized control over it, that is all they are interested in.
[+] [-] foob|2 years ago|reply
I know that web scrapers carry some negative connotations, but keep in mind that search engines like Google couldn't possibly exist without web scraping. A world where you can't block ads or scrape content for indexing is a world where only a few preordained companies have the ability to build search engines. Proposals like Web Environment Integrity (WEI) accomplish two goals for Google: they make ad blocking more difficult, and they kick down the ladder to prevent new innovative search engines from emerging. There are already many websites which only allow-list Google's IPs for indexing, and I think we should be very hesitant about anything that could further entrench their monopoly on search even if we support content creators being compensated through ads.
[+] [-] franciscop|2 years ago|reply
This is unfortunately patently not true anymore. As the internet has gotten more intertwined in our lives, so has into the gvmt, corporations, society, etc. For example banking, for using my bank I need an internet connection. I literally work on the internet, but even if I didn't I cannot imagine any of the main jobs I would be remotely qualified to do that doesn't need internet, so I'd be back to minimum-skill minimum-wage jobs. Which wouldn't afford me my current home, and from which I'd be kicked out of the country I live at since I wouldn't qualify for either the job type or minimum salary.
Note: I assume by "expendable" you mean "can be avoided without a huge impact in life", I _could_ live without internet but I'd also need to be working a minimum wage, wouldn't afford my home, and probably would even lose my visa.
[+] [-] pyrophane|2 years ago|reply
Don't want to look at ads online? Block them but realize you yourself may be blocked from certain places.
Don't want to allow ad-blocked users? Okay, but you lose those users unless you engage with the reason they are blocking ads and either give them an alternative or convince them to greenlist you.
[+] [-] johnnyanmac|2 years ago|reply
Every single thing on the internet is expendable. The internet as a whole is arguably not. I think that's where the rub lies.
>It may come in as a surprise to some but yes, you can have a life without the internet.
really depends on the person. I would not have my current career nor WFH role without the internet. It doesn't mean I can't "live", but it would cause a radical enough shift in my life that I'd essentially become a different person. I'll leave that answer to the philosophers.
[+] [-] avazhi|2 years ago|reply
I would go full Luddite and swear off YouTube, Twitch, etc if I absolutely had to watch ads to use their services. I already do this with twitch - once the unblockable ads start playing I close the tab and spend my time elsewhere, with nothing of value lost. There is literally no content that is worth being exposed to ads to access, from my point of view. I realise that many others don’t share such militant views on this, but for me it’s non negotiable.
[+] [-] _Algernon_|2 years ago|reply
In short protecting the users' right to run what they want on their computing device.
Now just apply this general principle to copyrighted content as well and we would approach a sane legal system (at least in this specific area).
[+] [-] turquoisevar|2 years ago|reply
I can’t have my cake and eat it too, and I’m fine with that.
Maybe if at a certain point everything is locked down with the help of device attestation/DRM I might change my tune, but even then I’m sure there will be alternatives for me, whether online or offline.
[+] [-] vasco|2 years ago|reply
I wasn't in love with my girlfriend / kids / etc before I met her either but I wouldn't want to go without her just because there was once a time where it was true. That seems like weak argument.
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] irrational|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] awiejtlaijwr|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xenoamorphous|2 years ago|reply
You’ll be saving them money (less infrastructure costs, like bandwith) without giving a penny to their competitors (because you’re using an adblocker); actually now you’re probably a net loss for their competitors.
So they’re happy to lose you, I guess?
We’re headed towards a paywalled Internet, I know first hand. And I hate it.
[+] [-] BLKNSLVR|2 years ago|reply
Ads aren't ads. They're trackers, viruses, malware, scams. Even video ads on Youtube, whilst not vectors of viruses or malware, they're advertising literal scams and YouTube are responding saying these ads are 'within' policy guidelines.
As I've said a few times before (in various ways), browsing the internet without an 'ad blocker' is like running Windows in the 90's / 00's without anti-virus software when you're a serial downloader of interesting programs / executables (like I was); it's negligent, you're asking for trouble.
The advertising industry, Google, Facebook, etc. are hiding behind the terminology "advertising" because it makes it sound a lot more palatable than what the reality is, as I said above: tracking, malware, viruses, scams.
If it was just advertising, then I'd be much less rabidly agressive in my defense of blocking it: Annoying is a long way separated from Dangerous.
Advertising, as it has evolved on the Internet, is Dangerous.
[+] [-] qingcharles|2 years ago|reply
Additionally, the amount of bandwidth the ads use is enormous, especially when they include self-playing video, and people who have government-issued phones in the USA (poor people) only get 15GB of bandwidth on most plans, and that is burned up within a couple of days due to this.
[+] [-] Dalewyn|2 years ago|reply
>If it was just advertising, then I'd be much less rabidly agressive in my defense of blocking it: Annoying is a long way separated from Dangerous.
This really needs to be emphasized more, because the problem is that these so-called "ads" aren't just ads anymore as you said.
If they were just ads, sure they would be annoying (or hilarious if they are made well!) but ultimately not something that most of us would feel a religious desire to block out of our lives.
But no, they aren't just ads anymore. They are malicious in their intent and harmful in their contents. If it's not the "ads" trojan horsing malware onto our computers, it's their contents directing us towards scams and harmful activities. That dangerous bullshit deserves to be blocked out with extreme prejudice.
Adblocking is the anti-virus of the 2010s and '20s, it's a defensive measure to keep ourselves safe.
[+] [-] jpambrun|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macguyvermectin|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Manuel_D|2 years ago|reply
I subscribe to a magazine. It has ads. I pay my butler to cut out the ads. Is that illegal? Now I have a robot butler doing the exact same thing. Is that illegal?
The web server is serving you content. Your ad blocker is a robot butler cutting the ads out of the documents you're receiving.
[+] [-] phailhaus|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamacyborg|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lolinder|2 years ago|reply
> While user freedom means that users are able to use the tools that they wish to when browsing the World Wide Web, the court nevertheless preserved Axel Springer’s right to exclude users with an activated adblocker from accessing its content. This can be understood as an approval on the use of adblock detection tools by companies like Axel Springer.
This sounds fine to me. If you want to put your content on the internet for all to see, great, but I'm not going to let my browser render the ads that you suggest that it render. If you want to put the content behind a paywall or otherwise block ad blockers, fine, I'll pay if it's worth my money or I won't if it's not. But I'm not going to turn my ad blocker off just because content publishers whine about it.
[+] [-] simonblack|2 years ago|reply
Certainly. But it's dumb on their behalf because you won't see any of their message at all. In practical terms, they might as well not exist.
[+] [-] cannedbeets|2 years ago|reply
(1) https://www.tomsguide.com/us/malvertising-what-it-is,news-19...
[+] [-] simion314|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josefresco|2 years ago|reply
"Use an ad blocking extension when performing internet searches. Most internet browsers allow a user to add extensions, including extensions that block advertisements. These ad blockers can be turned on and off within a browser to permit advertisements on certain websites while blocking advertisements on others."
https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221
[+] [-] Dwedit|2 years ago|reply
Thus begins the arms race. The client can simulate all that happening, but ultimately not actually present the ads to the user (possibly including a blank screen with a timer for enforced video ads).
Then the server starts forcing client attestation to make sure their scripts run in a trusted environment.
Gets really messy really quick.
[+] [-] matrix87|2 years ago|reply
Except, the one side has to pay for the dev work on their own proprietary system, the other side is a horde of volunteers. At a certain point it isn't worthwhile, easier to just accept that some people aren't going to cooperate
[+] [-] wdr1|2 years ago|reply
https://www.startbase.com/news/adblock-plus-mutter-eyeo-waec...
I can understand defining a standard for acceptable ads.
I can understand allowing ads that meet that standard.
What I struggle with is allowing ads that meet that standard AND require payment.
[+] [-] userbinator|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lee|2 years ago|reply
Content is paid with your eyeballs or with money. If you're not willing to pay with your eyeballs, then you shouldn't get the content. I think that's fair.
In China where copyright laws aren't enforced, there's simply no economic incentive for producers to create content...let's not go there.
[+] [-] more_corn|2 years ago|reply
The advertiser only wins when they convince me to do something I wouldn’t have done otherwise. Often that thing is not in my best interest. Buying a new car is great for advertisers. It’s a terrible financial decision for me.
Advertisers succeed by manipulating consumer behavior in ways that harm the consumer. Protecting myself from harmful manipulation is not only my right but I’d be an idiot not to do it.
Companies that prevent me from protecting myself from manipulation earn my ire. Fighting against Adblock makes you a bad company, and people who do it are doing a bad thing. What do we call people who do bad things? I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
[+] [-] simonblack|2 years ago|reply
The website owner has the choice to allow me to see his website ad-free, or to refuse my access to his website altogether.
That's OK. I can survive if I don't see his website at all. OTOH, if he blocks out too many of us, there won't be sufficient eyes on his advertising anyway.
* pay for the ads I see? Yes. I have many times been in the situation where I had a small monthly quota of data such that my total data allowance per day was only 60 MB. It doesn't take many 5 MB advertisements to complete use up my meagre daily data allowance.
[+] [-] macguyvermectin|2 years ago|reply
If this breaks websites’ business models, that’s their problem, not mine. I don’t have bareback sex with strangers and I don’t visit random websites without uBlock Origin.
[+] [-] cdme|2 years ago|reply
If your site fails because I’ve blocked your analytics suite, you have a poorly developed site.
[+] [-] matrix87|2 years ago|reply
Wah, cry me a river. Some corporation making hundreds of millions of dollars thinks it has a right to run malware on people's computers, just so the executives can line their pockets with more money. Maybe they should spend some of those millions and figure out a less stupid monetization strategy instead of trying to dream up a bunch of laws that suit them
[+] [-] Havoc|2 years ago|reply
The reality is much of the web is ad funded, so some sort of ugly compromise is necessary. Allowing both sides to do as they please seems more fair than holding a gun to corporates head and telling them no.
That said I reckon news is an exception - it's way too centralized and way to crucial to democracy to let all the big news orgs move as a unit. The way they all moved as a unit & some lead the charge on paywalls knowingly taking a hit felt way too coordinated for my liking.
[+] [-] InCityDreams|2 years ago|reply
I ignore them as they aren't terribly targeting, and I'm not an impulse buyer based on some pic of an overly happy smiley person.
Inasmuch as I'm not obligated to fund the advertisers and companies I see in the streets, the same is true of the net.
I owe them nothing - especially as they try and track me. I leave my phone in the car when i go shopping so location isn't a thing they can utilise against me, which they would if possible.
Having said that, i am looking after a friends dog at the moment. I walked past a store that sells royal canine a few days ago... got an ad for dog food on amazon, and in my gmail.
Coincidence? Possibly. Am i nervous? Absolutely you should be too.
[+] [-] paulryanrogers|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Terr_|2 years ago|reply
If I have some kind of legal obligation to permit their system to do stuff on my computer, then surely they must have have some level of liability for what that stuff does or enables.
[+] [-] Justsignedup|2 years ago|reply
Unfortunately... i don't know what we can do, even if the entire dev community gives google the finger.
[+] [-] mathgradthrow|2 years ago|reply
Moreover, your right to not be spied on for you browser configuration is the same as your right to not have your irises tracked. This isn't even close.
[+] [-] rldjbpin|2 years ago|reply
all this shaming by content owners who tend to continue pushing more intrusive ads is being rather unfair. at the same time, i don't see any issues with them witholding access to content if we try to bypass their intended use.
today serving content at a reasonable level has never been this cheap. if you serve a 2MB webpage for 500 word piece, then it serves you right when you complain about how much it costs you to run it. using that argument to moral policing only goes so far.