Adblock Plus: technology to hide ads on websites is legal

[Michael Browne]

Adblock Plus allows people browsing the internet to automatically hide those intensely irritating adverts and pop-ups on pages that they’re visiting

 

Over in Germany, a group of media companies took AdBlock Plus to court. They said it was threatening their business and that the whole thing is anti-competitive and, of course, they wanted it to be shut down.

 

However, much to the dismay of the media outlets, a court ruled in favour of allowing people to continue to block ads.

 

 

http://www.bitterwallet.com/court-rules-in-favour-of-software-that-blocks-adverts/84795

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/adblock-plus-technology-to-hide-adverts-on-websites-is-legal-court-rules-10195786.html

[renegadeimp]

Greed knows no bounds. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with blocking ads. If i dont want to see it, it gets blocked. How do they intend to police it if it was illegal? its impossible.

[unclebulgaria67]

Greed knows no bounds. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with blocking ads. If i dont want to see it, it gets blocked. How do they intend to police it if it was illegal? its impossible.

 

It is no different to recording a TV programme and fast forwarding through the adverts. If you watch programmes on Virgin Media catch up, there are no adverts.

 

It was silly to take it to court.

[Damian Bee]

This is so poetically brilliant... the 'companies' that still operate as 'digital' in this day and age. The fact that they whinged about ads being blocked is priceless... hello? It's part of the 'digital' domain! Next they'll probably take customers blocking their ads to court. Overall, this petty model of making money may work in arenas that are established and quite massive but generally is just an afterthought, a bolt-on to a real world business model... and about a decade after it's sell-by date now (pardon the pun). Digital dinosaurs.

 

People will consume what they want, as they want, same as they've done since the physical market place has ever existed.

[Domain Rider]

I can understand sites that rely on advertising revenue being concerned, but it's entirely up to the customers whether to block ads. I think the donation request policy of sites like this one is the right way to go. But if ad revenues are essential, a 'nudge' policy of having minimally obtrusive ads and politely requesting the user to disable the adblocker because they depend on ad revenues. That way, the user can decide between the value they get from the site and the annoyance of the ads.

[JoeyJoeC]

I understand sites sometimes rely on advertising for running costs, but simple solution would be a way to detect ad block and block access to the website. That would be fair in my opinion.

 

It's actually quite simple to do.

[citizenB]

oooh, I didn't know you could block ads - how do you do this, please ?

[JoeyJoeC]

Install a plugin for your browser:

 

Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock-plus/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/En-us/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

IE: http://simple-adblock.com/ (Never tested this one, just from a google search)

[citizenB]

[renegadeimp]

Make sur eyou get the updated lists too. Theyre seperate from the main plugin.

[Conniff]

It is no different to recording a TV programme and fast forwarding through the adverts. If you watch programmes on Virgin Media catch up, there are no adverts.

 

It was silly to take it to court.

 

 

Or skipping the pages in a newspaper. I only look at ads when I want something and then only at the product I'm interested in. As said earlier, 'greed knows no bounds'.