back to article Adblock wins in court again – this time against German newspaper

Adblock Plus has won another legal challenge in Germany against a daily newspaper which claimed its “acceptable ads” policy broke the law. The Süddeutsche Zeitung argued that Adblock Plus's German owner Eyeo GmbH should not be allowed to block ads while also offering a “whitelisting” service to advertisers. Adblock Plus …

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  1. RachelG

    ironically acceptable ads will probably kill adblock

    did for me anyway, for whatever anecdata's worth. I was so persistently annoyed by the Taboola ads still turning up that I chucked Adblock Plus ages ago in favour of uBlock Origin.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ironically acceptable ads will probably kill adblock

      Taboola are definitely not acceptable.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: ironically acceptable ads will probably kill adblock

        I've never had ABP let any ads through... perhaps I visit the wrong sites.

        1. RedCardinal

          Re: ironically acceptable ads will probably kill adblock

          I'm with you on this. I've never had any ads either :)

  2. Snowy Silver badge

    Or you and turn off thier "whitelist" so you do not see ads from big corporations such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Taboola" and decide for yourself what ads you allow.

    If the ad needs an off site script to display or wants to run a script it is going to stay block not matter how acceptable it is to someone else.

  3. Paul Crawford Silver badge

    Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

    The alternative, that of not having intrusive ads with sound or video, or grabbing focus, etc, has never occurred to them?

    Really, they get what they deserve for that. True, they do deserve some finical support for publishing, but not by throwing crap (and potential infection vectors) all over my screen.

    1. ratfox

      Re: Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

      Maybe I got it wrong; but from what I understand, even with acceptable ads, you still need to pay to get on the whitelist.

      Which does sound slightly like a protection racket in a "nice advertising revenue you've got, shame if anything was to happen to it" way.

      1. Can't think of anything witty...

        Re: Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

        i think that you might have it wrong. My understanding is that you can get on the whitelist in one of two ways, either by adhering to the acceptable advert policy, or by paying a chunk of money. I'm actually ok with the first of those, but the second makes me feel a little uneasy. i would think that if the only way to get whitelisted was to pay, then it would be a lot easier to accuse them of taking an unfair advantage.

        As for the whitelist, i've been using ABP for ages and it appears that i have had the Whitelist on (to show those adverts) and yet i cannot remember the last one i saw... so i don't really have a problem with that.

        1. Paul Shirley

          Re: Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

          You only pay for whitelisting above a threshold of views. They claimed the threshold means something like 90% pay nothing.

          1. Paul Shirley

            Re: Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

            ... And forget to say: paying doesn't bypass the acceptability checking...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Home taping is killing music!

    1. Stevie

      Home taping is killing music!

      Rubbish! The Victrola is killing the music industry!

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Re: Home taping is killing music!

        Home fucking is killing prostitution!

        1. ecofeco Silver badge

          Re: Home taping is killing music!

          Home fucking is killing prostitution!

          A more apt analogy to advertising has yet to be made.

          Upvoted.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Home taping is killing music!

          >Home fucking is killing prostitution!

          Love it !

          And masturbation is killing the human race.

          1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

            Re: Home taping is killing music!

            I knew I was doing something wrong..

        3. KeithR

          Re: Home taping is killing music!

          "Home fucking is killing prostitution!"

          I married a prostitute - I'm DEEPLY conflicted about this revelation..!

  5. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    I can't recommend Adblock any more!

    It nowadays bogs down the system more than all possible ads put together can do.

    And, of course, with Adblock now taking money to not block, it deserves to die a quick death.

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      The one who thumbed me down really need to practice using a system tool to monitor browser resource usage. Then compare with and without Adblock.

      1. imanidiot Silver badge

        @ABC, Yes, ABP uses more system resources than not running ABP (has to do with the way ABP prevents ads from running within frames and such). The reason for it is very simple to find and most adblockers suffer from the same problem.

    2. Archie Woodnuts

      "It nowadays bogs down the system more than all possible ads put together can do."

      It really doesn't.

      1. jason 7

        Yeah, rebuild in order I reckon.

        1. Archie Woodnuts

          "Yeah, rebuild in order I reckon."

          That or some pearls to clutch.

      2. Stevie

        It really doesn't.

        And even if it does, it does so without flashing annoying moving pictures or ransom-note banners at me.

      3. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

        RAM wise it sure does.

        It used gigabytes of RAM, which is unacceptable on many systems.

        Firefox is bad enough as it is on RAM usage.

        But, yes, you can save a bit on bandwidth and CPU cycles using AdBlock.

        I also had some odd things going on that used massed of CPU which I tracked to AdBlock, but that was likely a bug that has since been fixed...

        I much, much prefer NoScript, which REALLY removes all crap.

        It's more maintenance as I have to grant things to run, but results in really stripped down and quiet pages. I usually get through complicated internet baking sites etc with NoScript, by granting access to the obvious bank-URLs, but nothing else, like Google Analytics etc al.

    3. RedCardinal

      >>It nowadays bogs down the system more than all possible ads put together can do

      Really? Strange how it has no visible negative affect at all on my 4 year old mid-range pc....

      1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

        I might have believed you if you said "effect".

        1. KeithR

          "I might have believed you if you said "effect"."

          Rather than get it right.

          Which he did.

  6. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    The only acceptable ad is a static image, or text, that scrolls normally with the page.

    All the rest is total dreck.

    1. dan1980

      Non-static ads are not just 'dreck', which is bad enough; they track you and are also exceptionally dangerous potential malware vectors.

      When sites can guarantee that the ads they serve will never track me in any way, shape or form and are verifiably 100% malware-free, then I will be significantly more open to ads.

      The crux of the issue is that advertisers want to have their cake and eat it too. They want us to be stuck with the ads they choose to serve, as we are with traditional media, but they also want to track viewers/readers.

      The rub is that the technology they exploit in order to track us - the client-side request and rendering of Internet browsers - is the same thing that gives users the ultimate control over what is displayed.

      You can't have one without the other.

      1. nijam Silver badge

        > Non-static ads are not just 'dreck', which is bad enough; they track you and are also exceptionally dangerous potential malware vectors.

        The insidious ones just look static!

  7. Mint Sauce
    Devil

    $22bn

    According to a report by Adobe and PageFair, a Dublin-based adblocking blocker, nearly $22bn (£15bn) in advertising revenue was lost last year due to the practice.

    No, no it really wasn't.

    Unless they think the kind of people who block ads are the same kind of people who also love them and click on them and buy from them...

    1. Ben Boyle

      Re: $22bn

      Obviously they're using the same mathematicians and formulae to calculate losses as the RIAA

      1. BebopWeBop

        Re: $22bn

        The ones who specialise in imaginary numbers you mean?

        1. frank ly

          Re: $22bn

          I hadn't realised that I've been taking bread out of the mouths of advertising executive's children. I feel bad about using AdBlock now.

          1. Captain DaFt

            Re: $22bn

            "I hadn't realised that I've been taking bread out of the mouths of advertising executive's children. I feel bad about using AdBlock now."

            Well, you should feel bad.

            You're supposed to be stealing the candy from the little tykes! Sheesh, the quality of petty crooks these days...

    2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: $22bn

      Agreed.

      I have never clicked on an Ad that was shown to me. I never will.

      So why do I have to put up with the crap the ad slingers think I need to see?

      I don't. That's why I run an ad blocker.

      I also never watch ads on TV.

      I will never eat a Big Mac/Kfc/Burger King. etc etc etc

      I just wish that there was some way that I could just opt out of all advertising. Life would be a lot nicer.

      1. GrumpenKraut

        Re: $22bn

        Firstly, have an upvote.

        > I have never clicked on an Ad that was shown to me. I never will.

        I did click ads that were not fecking obnoxious. Now that was long ago.

        I am more than willing to click ads, for example for the Reg, if they are NOT obnoxious: static pics, no more. I'll say it AGAIN: offer a box "our ads" in a corner of each page that leads to a full page of ads. I'd not only go there but actually consider buying goods that are advertised in a non-intrusive way.

        @companies: intrusive ads are insults, think about it.

      2. Darryl

        Re: I also never watch ads on TV.

        Exactly. This is just a rehash of the outrage over home VCRs and DVRs/PVRs allowing people to skip over commercials on TV

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: I also never watch ads on TV.

          "Exactly. This is just a rehash of the outrage over home VCRs and DVRs/PVRs allowing people to skip over commercials on TV"

          And look what that's doing to TV these days. I was watching a US stream of a live TV channel the other day and there were banner ads across the bottom of the screen after the ad break. Based on the ad, that wasn't just on the streamed version since it was for a local business. Here in the UK, commercial channels are varying the ad break lengths as well as selling short slots at the start and end of the ad break making it harder to skip them completely.

          Advertisers are at war with their potential customers, ie us. It's ironic really.

          Correction: At war with their customers customers. We aren't the advertisers customers. Maybe the companies paying for the adverts should be sorting this out with the advertisers.

    3. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: $22bn

      @ mint sauce

      The thing is they do.

      Their bean counters include the figures that equate to ads blocked as if each of those was a potential revenue source. Whereas the blockers may well just not go near those sites, let alone click on their sh*t..

      This is in no way different to how the music and video industries beancounters treat every home copy as if it was an actual lost sale. But in reality while a proportion of these may well be convertible to actual lost sales many more are purely imaginary losses. If the freeloaders didn't get them free they just wouldn't get them at all.

      1. Paul Shirley

        Re: $22bn

        $22bn not in advertiser pockets is $22bn real businesses don't need to spend or recover from customers. Not sure why that counts as a loss at all.

      2. KeithR

        Re: $22bn

        "This is in no way different to how the music and video industries beancounters treat every home copy as if it was an actual lost sale."

        Oh, give over - it's UTTERLY different. And they're a LOT closer to being right about pirated music.

        Justifying nicking music doesn't wash.

    4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: $22bn

      "Unless they think the kind of people who block ads are the same kind of people who also love them and click on them and buy from them..."

      They think everyone really loves ads and can't understand how or why adblockers got into browsers. Maybe they think they're some sort of malware.

    5. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: $22bn @Mint Sauce

      You miss read the text you quoted:

      nearly $22bn (£15bn) in advertising revenue was lost last year

      Whilst I suspect the $22bn figure comes from the application of the Monte Carlo method, where the individuals sampled simply raised a wet finger and plucked a figure out of the air, the failure to serve an ad will result in no payment to either the website 'hosting' the ad or to the advertising agency, regardless of whether someone actually clicks on the ad or not.

      Hence it is perfectly correct to say that the Ad industry is missing or losing revenue (as are websites that depend upon garnering large revenues from the ad's they host). However, for businesses paying for an advertising campaign the economics are probably quite different, given they are wanting to generate real business transactions and not just clicks...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: $22bn

        $22bn. Firstly the figure is from an industry which lies for a living, so a bit of scepticism might be warranted.

        Secondly, it fails to take into account people like me who have a "no fly" list for manufacturers who piss them off beyond a certain point. Using their spurious accounting methods, you could counter-argue that ad-block actually gains revenue because the more cantankerous among us aren't seeing the adverts and aren't blacklisting some manufacturers because of it.

    6. tiggity Silver badge

      Re: $22bn

      Maybe their comment was based on the assumption that (with no ad blocker) with how the slow background load of the Mbs of ad associated cruft & async page / part of page re-renders causes a page to jump around like mad (especially on a mobile) that an accidental click on an ad just whilst trying to scroll through the content you wanted to read is almost inevitable? Thats the lost revenue.

    7. Durant Imboden

      Re: $22bn

      "No, no it really wasn't.

      Unless they think the kind of people who block ads are the same kind of people who also love them and click on them and buy from them..."

      Not all ads are pay-per-click.

  8. RedneckMother

    heh, heh...

    Joke 'em if they can't take a... wait... how does that go?

  9. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    Thinking about this thing a bit more..

    Isn't is just absurd that somehow there is even a concept that people may not be allowed to filter whatever data they are looking at on their own computers, in their own homes, using their own paid-for internet connection, in whatever way they want?

    If you want your content to reach the reader/viewer/listener unmodified, just make it so people don't feel a need to modify it. Simples.

    And stop thinking you have any right to force anything on any user.

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