Advertisements are a part of our lives, including our digital ones. They are in the websites we browse, the search results we receive, and the online news we read. Tired of receiving so many ads, some users try to avoid them by installing an adblocker. But is this a legal practice? Is using adblockers an act of restricting market autonomy, or do they help achieve user freedom?
Imagine a scenario where website owners hold copyright over their websites, including whatever ads they place, and could effectively sue for copyright infringement if users were to remove or suppress ads when visiting these websites. This hypothetical situation would enable any website copyright holder to use the legal system to stop any ordinary user on the internet who tries to bypass these ads. This would lead to an internet where unsolicited information and advertisements are imposed on users. Fortunately, recent court decisions have at least prevented this hypothetical from becoming a reality in Germany.
↫ FSFE
Good.
My position has always been clear: your computer, your rules. Block ads to your heart’s content. Even on OSNews – block away if you want. There are far better ways to support us, anyway (Patreon, Ko-Fi, Liberapay, merch).
While I am in agreement, I think the bigger threat to adblocking isn’t legal, but rather dominant browser makers who want the web and popular sites to become DRMified.
Alfman,
I think that would be what failed micro-payments, or web3 would be, in yet another attempt.
If there was a way to browse “premium” content “a la carte” with a seamless payment option, or a good enough multi-service subscription, it would have changed the web significantly. For better, or worse, time would tell.
Patreon provides an option. As Thom mentioned, it works on OSNews, but it is not always seamless. Nor it is universal. (If I pay for a YouTube channel on Patreon I still get ads there, but if I pay on YouTube, then they get a cut, and so on).
sukru,
I don’t know what your criteria is, but there are a lot of websites today that exist behind paywalls. Some of the articles that osnews links to are behind paywalls. I don’t believe Thom does this intentionally, but the paywall websites can use selective regional/time based paywall enforcement to encourage linking, and turning on the paywall when audiences come “knocking”.
This is kind of annoying when it comes to research papers being published on private academic portals, it feels like the antithesis of spreading knowledge, but then researchers want to earn a living too.
I kind of wish humanity could evolve past these economic constraints, making mandatory work obsolete, but this is a whole other topic 🙂
I know we’ve talked about it before, but I feel technology & web should be decentralized rather than revolve around centralized content middle men like youtube. Alas, technology inevitably gets shaped by those with the most money to shape it.
Alfman,
I should have been more specific.
That is true. Paywalls are another category of monetization.
Basically we had in the past
– ad supported content,
– paywalled content,
– and some other minor sized options like subsidized content (MSDN documents which are free, but visual studio is not), or affiliate links, and so on.
Yes, peer-to-peer decentralized content distribution would be another option.
Circling back,
The main blocker for micro-payments is the frictions that come with it. If you click on a link and it say “pay 30 cents to see the full content”, even if you absolutely want to, you need to go through several additional clicks. But to be logical, adding a modal window there would take away the “impulse” buy, and force the user to make a deliberate choice.
If we had a way to do this in the background it would work. And the closest thing is Patreon, which bundles separate payments into one location. (Though there is obviously no discount for signing up to multiple pages / content creators).
I can’t see how the legal argument of copyright would ever apply to ad blockers. I agree with Alfman, a bigger threat to browsing is consolidation of 90% of browsing to Chrome code, which would then deprecate all ad blockers. We have to support Firefox.
There are sinister ways of serving ad-supported content… on other people’s web sites.
They would hijack the existing ads and replace with their own. I think at one point there was a browser (or multiple?) that did this. And for example Brave seems to be just skimming the boundaries of what would be acceptable. (Inserting ads around content, inserting referral links, …)
sukru,
I didn’t know brave did this, I know microsoft has been injecting it’s own ads on rival websites and I don’t personally find this to be acceptable behavior for a browser.
https://www.theverge.com/23935029/microsoft-edge-forced-windows-10-google-chrome-fight
These companies have no shame.
Alfman,
They might be “experimenting” with what the consumers will accept. First add a new “feature” and then apologize when caught.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-affiliate-links-crypto-privacy-ceo-apology
(I generally give lots of leeway to possible mistakes, as I have seen them happen. But implementing a brand new feature would be an extremely unlikely “mistake” to happen on its own).
@Alfman
The minute money is involved it becomes a race to the bottom, we already see content creators masquerading as enthusiasts complaining about their venture not being monetised enough and threatening to pull the pin if fans fail to support them. Some of them seemingly spending thousands on content creation, not enthusiast all at but fulltime professional or semi-professional vloggers with hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers. Then they have the gall to complain about Ads being inserted without their permission, yet block those Ads and you’re apparently the subscriber they don’t want!
There is so much double standard that if you bother to take notice browsing becomes almost intolerable.
Or you could run the ad blocker on your router, so it does not matter what browser you use.
In-browser content blockers such as uBlock Origin can be much more powerful and flexible than router-based blockers that operate on the DNS level. (Of course, the latter have their advantages as well, and one can run both.)
How exactly could anyone enforce a copyright on someone who doesn’t copy? OTOH using personal property without permission is a criminal offense. When I go to one website, I don’t give permission for that operator to secretly load other content, or to use my computer to store cookies. If website owners want to negotiate paying me fees for using my stuff, that’s one thing. But right now they’re the criminals, taking what’s not theirs. Sorry, but profit is not an unalienable right.
Speed Daemon
Indeed. Interpreting copyright law this way is perverse.
This is a huge stretch. You may not like the content, but it’s their website and they choose the content, not you. A website is like a magazine or newspaper, while it might contain commercial content you find objectionable, your legal remedy is to stop buying/reading/visiting said sources. The constitution gives them a large degree of latitude in publishing what they want. You do not have an unalienable right to dictate what others are allowed to publish, including ads.
@Speed Daemon The content creators and purveyors of content are dead in the water if they pursue subscribers, let’s sit back and wait to see who is actually stupid enough to do it first!
This post finally got me to recover my old account (last comment in 2012!) and become a Patreon member.
Thom,
This shows, unfortunately, you need to nag us every now and then in order to remind subscription is an option.
We have been on this site for many years, and wish it keeps running. Just that there is friction in this process.
Just to check things out, I’ve unblocked osnews and the ads aren’t annoying at all. I think I will leave adblocker off for this site, might even click if I see something useful.
It would be just like saying that if I buy a book and I tear some pages out I’m infringing copyright. Ridiculous.
That goes both ways though: their server, their rules. This means they can block clients blocking ads to their heart’s content.
Disclaimer: I am also using ad blockers, but I am not naive enough to believe server bills will magically pay themselves. If everyone out there was blocking ads, the web as we know it wouldn’t exist. And since blocking ads is just too easy and it’s only a matter of time until everyone learns it’s possible (and easy), it’s also only a matter of time before a cat-and-mouse game begins or all large websites start erecting paywalls.
A compromise would be for websites to host their own ads (like YouTube is doing), so at least the ads won’t have malware, but we all know that’s not going to happen. So, let the cat-and-mouse game begin.
kurkosdr,
I’m not sure that’s true. The web would still exist, but the business arrangements would be different. There would likely be more direct sponsorships and less random ad injections. Some people might take the absolute position that all ads are equally obnoxious, but IMHO there are different levels of it. I for one hate ad formats that actively interrupt content, but other formats can be more palatable and less annoying and I think those are less likely to be blocked.
I have no interest in being tracked by 3rd party trackers including google and I block their ads unapologetically. I find first party ads less objectionable since it doesn’t increase one’s tracking footprint beyond viewing content directly. But then you make a valid point as to this being unlikely to happen. By and large first party ads have stopped being viable; small websites can’t fight the monopoly.
we would like to thank everyone https://vimeo.com/user213028642