Anti-adblock-killer illegal and violating the DMCA?

[gnits]

What is the stance of the authors on the accusation of this extension being an illegal tool to violate the DMCA?

The reasoning goes like this:

1. Adblock blockers employed by sites are a form or copy protection / digital rights management (DRM) / access control software.
2. Circumvention of any of these technologies is explicitly forbidden under the DMCA.
3. Therefore, anti-adblock-killer, which enables the circumvention of said blockers is clearly illegal under anti-circumvention laws.

Have any lawyers been consulted on this issue?

[Mrhohoho]

Just from my Curiosity. Will you provide the source of the accusation? I want to see it for myself.

and I wonder How 'NOT using Someone's Copyrighted material(blocking adblock javascript)' even Violate the copyright law. accusator need to explain this.
And to be fair. I'v never seen a single site enforcing user to agree rules like 'you must agree to watch our ads to use our Site'.
Well. I never agreed to watch any kind of ads from begining. So I have right to block every single ads they throwing at my face.

[reek]

@gnits
From what I read of the DMCA law, I do not see how AAK is illegal under any circumstances violate the copyright.

[gnits]

@reek
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention#United_States

There are other kind of anti-circumvention laws in other countries as well, but they all have in common that they outlaw any circumvention of digital access control / DRM / copy protection technologies. And it seems obvious that an anti adblocker, which only allows access to the content and service when ads are not blocked, is such an access control mechanism.

[gnits]

@Mrhohoho
"Just from my Curiosity. Will you provide the source of the accusation? I want to see it for myself."
Feel free to Google it: https://www.google.hu/search?q=ad+blocking+%22anti+circumvention%22

"and I wonder How 'NOT using Someone's Copyrighted material(blocking adblock javascript)' even Violate the copyright law. "
We're not talking about the direct violation of the copyright law here (which might very well also apply, but I'm not talking about that), but about the violation of the DMCA.

"And to be fair. I'v never seen a single site enforcing user to agree rules like 'you must agree to watch our ads to use our Site'."
Well, there's a thing called implied contract, which means that even by using a service or consuming content you agree to under whatever terms those are made available to you. These terms are usually laid out in a ToS - so if that explicitly states that you must not block the ads or any parts of the page, etc. to access the service, then you definitely must not do so. But again, what we're talking about here is not the violation of such contracts either, but the violation of the DMCA.

"Well. I never agreed to watch any kind of ads from begining. So I have right to block every single ads they throwing at my face."
One does not lead to the other. See above. But, again, what we're talking about is not that blocking ads is illegal per se (which might be, but I'm not talking about that now), but that circumvention of an access control mechanism, like an anti adblocker is illegal under the DMCA.

[reek]

@gnits
I think you're a bad interpretation of the law. Because the anti-adblock are mechanisms to protect the revenue from advertising and not to protect copyrighted content.

[kosmonautbruce]

IANL, but the only way to know this would be for a lawsuit to happen. Absent that, it's impossible to say if anti-adblock would be considered a circumvention technology.

More importantly, it would depend entirely on the jurisdiction, different countries have different versions of DMCA-style laws. In Germany, for instance, the publisher of the Bild newspaper got a restraining order against Eyeo/Ad Block Plus when there was discussion on the ABP forums of ways to get around the Bild "ad wall" recently erected. Bild also sued a German videoblogger who had a tutorial on YouTube about getting around the Bild ad wall. Both the blogger and Eyeo backed down and removed the content, in the face of the lawsuits.

http://digiday.com/publishers/adblock-plus-accuses-axel-springer-censorship-ad-block-move/
https://www.ridingfree.org/2015/10/26/block-the-blogging-of-blocking/

I think its a BS move on the part of the publishers, but it could happen.

[Giwayume]

The web standards that visually construct a web page in a web browser (HTML, CSS, Javascript) are a suggesion of how a web page should be viewed. In the end if you want to traverse websites by reading the raw HTML, it is perfectly in your right to do so.

wget http://google.com/

A company's control of their website stops once they've sent their static files to the client. These files are now open to the user's interpretation of how to construct them. If they weren't that could mean dreadful consequences for browser developers because an accidental bug that doesn't follow the web standards could lead to a lawsuit. It would also mean that accessibility software like screen readers that allow blind people to traverse websites could be illegal.

[Watilin]

@Giwayume I totally support your argument.

For the same exact reason as Adblock is legal – and this has been officially stated by the court of Hambourg – any tool designed to improve or fix the functioning of Adblock can in no way be deemed illegal.

[gnits]

@Giwayume "A company's control of their website stops once they've sent their static files to the client."
That's not how it works. In reality the recipient is still bound by the applicable laws (like copyright law or DMCA), and by other legal agreements - including those he agreed to in order to get access to the website and its contents. So, the client/browser/user can't do anything with the acquired content that's prohibited by either the law or for ex. by the ToS of the website.

"If they weren't that could mean dreadful consequences for browser developers because an accidental bug that doesn't follow the web standards could lead to a lawsuit."
Not really. W3C documents like HTML5, CSS3, etc. are not "standards" (in the legal sense), just "recommendations". That's the highest status any W3C document can reach. Standards violation might be prosecuted in some cases, but there's no law against not following recommendations of an organization which is not even a standards organization (in the legal sense).

Also, criminal prosecution of most offenses requires criminal intent, which obviously does not apply for a software bug - which by definition is accidental, and in turn can not be prosecuted criminally if criminal intent is required. And civil liability is excluded or minimized by the browser's licensee agreement.

But then again, that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the - by the way willful and intentional - violation of the DMCA which has nothing to do with not following standards/recommendations, because of bugs.

"It would also mean that accessibility software like screen readers that allow blind people to traverse websites could be illegal."
No, it doesn't mean that. Partly because screen readers happen to be explicitly exempted from some DMCA restrictions.

But then again, we're not talking about the legality of screen readers or even ad blockers per se, but about the legality of a anti-adblock-killer, which circumvents the adblock ban of websites.

[gnits]

@reek "I think you're a bad interpretation of the law. Because the anti-adblock are mechanisms to protect the revenue from advertising and not to protect copyrighted content."
One does not exclude the other. It's protecting the content by technical means in order to protect the revenue stream of the publisher. But that holds true for any and all other commercial copyright protection methods.

For ex. the CSS protection of DVDs is there to protect the revenue stream of the publishers. The DRM protection of ebooks or digital music is there to protect the revenue stream of the publishers. The HDCP of video systems is there to protect the revenue of the content owners. All commercial DRM / copy protection systems have that as their primary purpose.

So, unless you want to argue that all these protection systems are legal to circumvent (which they are not), I think don't think you have an actual argument for the legality of circumvention of adblock blockers either.

[gnits]

@Watilin "For the same exact reason as Adblock is legal – and this has been officially stated by the court of Hambourg'
Actually, that's not what happened. In reality what the Hamburg court did was: they threw out the case brought against Eyeo by Axel Springer on the basis, that the latter tried to sue the former by invoking competition law, and the court deemed these two companies not to be competitors.

However, the legality of ad blocking itself was never investigated by the court, and thus it has not been deemed legal by it. I know, Eyeo's press release states something different, but they're just plain out lying through their teeth. Just go to the original source and check it for yourself: http://www.telemedicus.info/urteile/Wettbewerbsrecht/Werbung/1584-LG-Hamburg-Az-416-HKO-15914-Zulaessigkeit-von-Adblockern-mit-Whitelist-Funktion.html

That said, let me reiterate to you again, that right here and right now I'm not debating the legality of ad blocking per se, but questioning the legality of anti-adblock-killer, based on the fact that it circumvents an access control mechanism (anti-adblocking), which is explicitly forbidden by the DMCA.

If you've comments regarding the latter, then please elaborate them. But there's no point in trying to argue about the legality of ad blocking itself (even if it's not rooted in false information), because that's not the subject here, and because of the possible legality of ad blocking itself does not imply the legality of anti-adblock-killer, because of the things explained above.

[Watilin]

Well, my deutsch is a bit rusty but I believe you about the Hamburg court. Thank you for the enlightenment.

As for DMCA, I dont think we can formally bind any copyrighted work with the advertising distributed on the same support. The sum of the work plus the ad does not make one single product.

Now I would be of bad faith if I wouldn't talk about terms of service. I saw a number of websites explicitely stating that, by using it, I must not block their ads. To be honest, should these sites implement an Adblock prevention mechanism, I'm not sure that it would be legal to circumvent it.

But, practically speaking, I think Adblock's illegality will have to be proven before Aak's one.

I see tomorrow a relative who is lawyer. Even though – being non american – she may not know well about DMCA, I'll ask her about this.

[gnits]

@Watilin "The sum of the work plus the ad does not make one single product, /a minima/ for the reason they hasn't been made by the same author"
That's not the determining factor here. For ex. a movie also consists of multiple works (screenplay, music/score, costumes, actors' likeliness, etc) that are copyrighted or copyrightable on their own and not created by the same author. Yet, I don't think you'd argue that a movie is not a copyrighted work (as a whole), or that the DMCA doesn't apply to it, would you? The same goes for a web page.

"I saw a number of websites explicitely stating that, by using it, I must not block their ads. To be honest, should these sites implement an Adblock prevention mechanism, I'm not sure that it would be legal to circumvent it."
If they state that you must not block ads, and the ToS can be considered valid, then even just blocking the ads themselves (even in the absence of an adblock prevention mechanism, and the circumvention of that) would constitute breach of the contract, and thus be illegal. But again, I'm not arguing about that here, but specifically about aak.

"But, practically speaking, I think Adblock's illegality will have to be proven before Aak's one."
It's the other way round. Aak can be illegal even then, if ad blocking itself is legal. Like, you know, creating a backup copy of your music might be legal (under fair use), but circumventing a copy protection mechanism to facilitate that copying is definitely illegal (because it violates the DMCA). That said, if ad blocking itself is illegal, then obviously aak can't be used legally either.

"I see tomorrow a relative who is lawyer. Even though – being non american – she may not know well about DMCA, I'll ask her about this."
That would be a good idea. Even though I think she'd have to understand also the technical merits of ad blocking and aak fully, to assess the situation properly. But it's a good start. Anyway, I'd recommend showing her at least this discussion here, so she gets at least the technical insights and legal considerations already presented here, and can comment on those, instead of just having to start from scratch.

[ghost]

Would you say that circumventing geo-blocking and all tools/systems used for that purpose are also illegal since geo-blocking is a form of digital access control? And what about circumventing censorship in general?

[Giwayume]

@gnits
"Not really. W3C documents like HTML5, CSS3, etc. are not "standards" (in the legal sense), just "recommendations". That's the highest status any W3C document can reach. Standards violation might be prosecuted in some cases, but there's no law against not following recommendations of an organization which is not even a standards organization (in the legal sense). "

This is exactly what I'm getting at. If I want to go out and create my own web browser with a custom implementation of CSS that hides every classname that contains the word "ad" by default, that is no different from writing a browser extension that does the exact same thing.

And no, there is no court case on this earth that is going to prosecute anyone for not following web standards. It holds zero weight. It's just an agreed upon way of doing things across countries and web browser developers.

[Watilin]

I admit my one-author argument was bad, and I edited my comment quickly after I posted it to remove that part, but you happend to find it anyway.

My relative told me what I already told here: the ad isn't part of the copyrighted work. An ad protection mechanism isn't a copyright protection mechanism, so circumventing it doesn't fall under the DMCA conditions.

Regarding terms of service, this belongs to the domain of trade laws, which may differ greatly from one country to another, so she couldn't say.

[gnits]

@Watilin "An ad protection mechanism isn't a copyright protection mechanism"
Nobody said it was one. What I said was that an anti-adblocker (which does not grant you access to the content with an active ad blocker in your browser) is an "access control mechanism". Circumvention of which is prohibited by the DMCA.

"My relative told me what I already told here: the ad isn't part of the copyrighted work."
Which, again, is not what's argued here and is completely irrelevant to the point.

[Giwayume]

Creating scripts that cover up content on a page isn't an access control mechanism, because the website has already sent that content to the user publicly via the HTML file.

Choosing to not send the content in the first place via server-side scripting IS an access control mechanism, because the content never arrives in the user's hands. See the difference?

[satrianiboys]

Just read until post #3, then i didn't read the rest.
Must be a butt hurt web owners/ads company/relative lol

[kosmonautbruce]

Regardless of personal motivation, gnits does raise important points. The
truth, as I see it, is that ad-blocking is probably legal in most cases.

Bypassing "ad-walls" like we are now seeing from Wired, Bild, Forbes, etc.
is murkier, because it touches on the prohibition of "anti-circumvention
technologies" in the DMCA and similar laws in the EU. Fundamentally, we
don't know the answer, as the issue has not been judged in a court yet,
AFAIK, yet it's easy to see publishers taking the stance that "ad-walls"
are just like pay walls, and therefore legally enforceable.

Clearly, publishers in Germany like Axel Springer/Bild are happy to go to
court to protect their business model, and I believe it's a matter of when,
not if, they sue makers of anti-adblock killer type technologies.
I think they are stupid to do so, but considering that they are
still regularly suing Eyeo over AdBlock Plus, unsuccessfully, I would not
expect their attitudes to change any time soon.

I hope reek does not live in Germany, if only to avoid any possible
hassles.

On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 11:39 AM, satrianiboys notifications@github.com
wrote:

Just read until post #3
#3, then i didn't
read the rest.
Must be a butt hurt web owners/ads company/relative lol

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#1034 (comment)
.

619.857.6924
bruce@brucelidl.com

[gnits]

@Giwayume "Creating scripts that cover up content on a page isn't an access control mechanism, because the website has already sent that content to the user publicly via the HTML file."
Following your argument, a DRM system that runs on your computer and controls access to previously downloaded content or content stored on an optical or magnetic storage medium is not an access control mechanism, because the content it protects is already has been sent to and/or is in the possession of the user. Or a login system of your operating system is not an access control mechanism, because the data and files it protects are already on the hard drive.

Obviously, that's not how things work. Not on the web either. The definition of an access control mechanism does nowhere imply that the limitations it imposes are only applicable to remote content, or that content that's been downloaded to the user's computers can not be subject of it. The DMCA itself also makes no distinction between remote and local content or systems, because - for the purpose of copyright protection or access control - these terms are completely irrelevant.

[Giwayume]

Incorrect, DRM involves encrypted files. Encryption is a form of access control. HTML is a human readable language.

And seriously, don't you have better places to waste time? Go watch a movie, or read a book, or go throw a frisbee with your dog, or something. I heard Deadpool is a good movie. Go watch that.

[Giwayume]

@gnits
I can't help but feel you have the ever so slightest personal emotional involvement in your argument considering you've forked https://github.com/gnits/revive-adserver.

You're not trying to be rational and this topic is not helping anyone, including yourself.

[gnits]

@Giwayume "Incorrect, DRM involves encrypted files."
Wrong. A DRM technology MIGHT employ encryption, but DOES NOT necessarily do so. Then again, we're talking about "access control mechanism" here, not specifically about DRMs. They were just brought forward as an (non-exclusive) example of the former.

"Encryption is a form of access control. HTML is a human readable language."
Both true, but irrelevant conclusions. Neither of them disprove that anti ad-blocking is a form of access control.

"And seriously, don't you have better places to waste time? "
Are you asking this, because you feel you can't defend your point in this argument, and you wouldn't like me to keep pointing out that? If you would have rational and valid arguments, you could just present those, and wouldn't have to fall back to ad hominem attacks and other logical fallacies, would you?

"You're not trying to be rational and this topic is not helping anyone, including yourself."
Well, I certainly wouldn't want the author(s) of AAK to land in jail, because of "manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner " (ie. anti ad blocking technologies). Would you? Unless you would, you must agree that it might be a great help (for ex. in avoiding some legal proceedings and possible jail time) for them to point out the potential illegality of AAK.

[ghost]

I don't see what the point of this discussion is. Do you guys think you can judge if anti-adblock circumvention is illegal or not? It's unclear if anything and only a court case could clear the situation up. If it was declared illegal ABP and EasyList would both go down too since they're already circumventing anti-adblock on a lot of sites through e.g. whitelisting certain scripts. Even then there is nothing stopping a user from disabling JavaScript for circumvention which works fine for many sites (for example news articles).

[Giwayume]

@gnits
haha no one is going to jail here.

[ghost]

I feel like this post is just fear mongering by @gnits.
Also this:

Both the blogger and Eyeo backed down and removed the content, in the face of the lawsuits.

The blogger did not sign the restraining order and all Axel Springer has done is send more warning letters. Eyeo probably got in trouble in court because of acceptable ads. They make money with ads just like Axel Springer and are therefore a competitor.

Fun fact: uBlock Origin in standard configuration on Firefox circumvents the bild.de block so why does Axel Springer not care? They probably know they don't have a chance.

[gnits]

@IDKwhattoputhere "I feel like..."
Well, discussions of feelings are for therapy groups. But here I'd rather stick to the discussion of facts, laws and logic. Now, if you have a valid point to make, you can bolster it with facts and logical arguments. And if you can't, you should probably consider accepting the point of the person, who can. This is really Logical Discussion 101.

"The blogger did not sign the restraining order"
One does not have to "sign" a restraining order - it's imposed on someone by the court. That's the whole point of it. That said the blogger didn't get a restraining order, but a cease and desist letter. I'm just clearing this all up here to show how much non-sense and non-factual information are brought up in this discussion by some people.

"and all Axel Springer has done is send more warning letters."
Again, those are called cease and desist letters. And AS did not only send out those, but they also successfully argued in court against two of their targets: Adblock and Adshield, and the court ordered those two ad blockers to be withdrawn from the app stores (in Germany).

Axel Springer were also granted a preliminary injunction against Eyeo (the maker of Adblock Plus), which forbid the latter the distribution of code snippets (ie. blocklist entries) that enabled the circumvention of AS's anti ad blocker technology. So, basically, they forbid ABP to develop, distribute and/or employ technologies similar to AAK.

Source: http://www.mobilegeeks.de/news/axelspringer-juristische-erfolge-gegen-werbeblocker/

"Eyeo probably got in trouble in court because of acceptable ads. "
As explained above, Eyeo got in trouble because it distributed and published code snippets that could be used to circumvent AS's anti ad blockers scripts, and because the courts obviously deemed those being a direct violation of the anti-circumvention laws (ie. the German version of the DMCA).

So, in relation to Germany and at this point it's rather safe to assume that the courts would deem AAK also definitely illegal, would someone actually sue the creators. Of course German courts have no jurisdiction outside Germany - but who knows where the creators are from. And the anti-circumvention laws are all similar all over the world, including the DMCA, that I brought up initially in the title.

[ghost]

So instead of making better ads they want to outlaw anti-adblock circumvention. It's astounding to me how blind these people are that they don't see why people use adlockers. Or they don't care about the users and just want to force ads down our throats. What's kind of ironic is that the content on bild.de is worse than the ads. They are basically redundant and have been constantly losing readers for years. I don't understand their problem anyways. Sites like Reddit have no problem with adblockers so why can't news outlets finance themselves like Reddit does? Or look at GMail. The only ads are small text ads that sometimes appear above the inbox. They don't even need to load any additional scripts for those. No one wants a car commercial with sound while trying to read an article. That's why most people use adblockers. They don't even consider the malware or behaviour tracking aspect. All they want is not to be yelled at. Are the advertisers too dense to understand that?

[gnits]

@Lazza This ticket is not about the legality of ad blocking, but about the legality of aak and the circumvention of anti ad blockers. Which is a completely different issue than copyright itself per se.

I'm not saying you're right with what you're saying. Just that the legality of ad blocking is completely orthogonal to the legality of aak and similar software. In every country.

[Lazza]

The prevention of anti ad blockers works the same way. You use a list of filters that block contents from being loaded. We might as well put ads and anti ad-blockers in the same "unwanted elements" category.

If I own a computer I get to decide which software can run on it or what content I want to actually download. I would say that the usage of the "circumvention" word itself should be questioned.

[iamunknown2]

@Lazza Devil's advocate here, but you could apply the same logic to DRM and say that since it is your PC, you should have the right to execute whatever commands (be it anti-DRM scripts) you please.

[Lazza]

I am sorry because I'm not a native speaker and I might not be expressing what I am saying in the clearest way.

I am not trying to say that you can execute whatever you want. DDOS is still illegal even if you run the attack from your PC. What I am saying is that nobody can force you to download or execute anything.

You are free NOT to run what you don't want. When I visit a website, the site says "please run this piece of JS as well". I might comply or not, this is completely my choice.

[iamunknown2]

@Lazza Still devil's advocate, but couldn't you technically be exercising your right to NOT run what you don't want by automating the process of ignoring the execution of DRM code?

[Lazza]

@iamunknown2 well, if you are able to do that and still access content (which is highly unlikely) then sure. But in the case of DRM, usually there is some kind of encryption and if you don't run the DRM code you cannot access your content.

Besides, DRM is the most stupid thing ever since copyright law already exists in basically any jurisdiction in the world. The DRM just adds additional, unlawful extra restrictions that limit your rights (i.e. performing a privately owned backup copy of the contents you bought a license for, e.g. by buying a blu-ray disk).

As a matter of fact, there are many sane countries where this is not a problem at all. Even in the US, a ruling stated that:

The act of infringement underlying the inducement claim, however, is not the removal of DRM protection. Rather, it is the copying and distribution of ebooks to others after such protection has been removed.

Source

Anyway, sorry for going a bit off topic. We were talking about blocking PUP (Potentially Unwanted Programs) and I am quite astonished to see that in 2016 we still want to discuss if blocking this kind of adware/malware/whatever should be permitted or not.

[ghost]

I think we're forgetting the point here. This block list exists because of adblock circumvention in the first place by providers who believe they're entitled to force ads upon the user. This circumvention list exists because providers circumvent browser security (Adblockers) to coerce/force users into unblocking their site.

Not only that, this list isn't a "circumvention"; it adds configuration to tools like ublock. Does this mean that disabling tracking by using disconnect is "circumventing"? No.

[tallus]

The DMCA contains provisions allowing circumvention for the purposes of protecting personal privacy.

From the US Copyright Office Summary of the DMCA:

Personal privacy (section 1201(i)). This exception permits circumvention when the technological measure, or the work it protects, is capable of collecting or disseminating personally identifying information about the online activities of a natural person.

Text frrom the DMCA itself:
Section 1201:
(i) Protection of Personally Identifying Information.—
(1)Circumvention permitted.—Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), it is not a violation of that subsection for a person to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title, if—
(A) the technological measure, or the work it protects, contains the capability of collecting or disseminating personally identifying information reflecting the online activities of a natural person who seeks to gain access to the work protected;
(B) in the normal course of its operation, the technological measure, or the work it protects, collects or disseminates personally identifying information about the person who seeks to gain access to the work protected, without providing conspicuous notice of such collection or dissemination to such person, and without providing such person with the capability to prevent or restrict such collection or dissemination;
(C) the act of circumvention has the sole effect of identifying and disabling the capability described in subparagraph (A), and has no other effect on the ability of any person to gain access to any work; and
(D) the act of circumvention is carried out solely for the purpose of preventing the collection or dissemination of personally identifying information about a natural person who seeks to gain access to the work protected, and is not in violation of any other law.
(2)Inapplicability to certain technological measures.—
This subsection does not apply to a technological measure, or a work it protects, that does not collect or disseminate personally identifying information and that is disclosed to a user as not having or using such capability.

[iamunknown2]

@tallus Case closed then...

[gnits]

@tallus @iamunknown2 An anti ad blocker obviously does not collect or disseminate personally identifying information - because it's not needed. An anti ad-blocker merely checks whether the user/browser is blocking ads, and if they do, it blocks access to the content. That does not involve neither collection, nor dissemination of any kind of personally identifying information - even if the latter is interpreted in the broadest possible way.

Also, the DMCA explicitly states that the circumvention would be exempt from the prohibition only as long as "the act of circumvention has the sole effect of identifying and disabling the capability described in subparagraph (A), and has no other effect on the ability of any person to gain access to any work".

In layman terms: it would be only legal to "disable" those parts of the access protection that collect personally identifiable information - but even this exemption does not make it legal to circumvent the access protection itself.

So, no, this exemption DEFINITELY does not apply to the circumvention of anti ad blockers, and does not exempt aak from the DMCA either.

[Lazza]

First of all, you are abusing the term "circumvention" again. You are not breaking into someone else's computer bypassing a login, you are preventing undesired malicious software from running on your computer.

Secondly, most ad networks make heavy use of third party cookies, therefore they are used essentially to collect information about users. The sentence you have cited also requires that the "measures" be explicitly reported as not collecting PII.

[gnits]

@Lazza You're obviously confusing ad blocking with anti ad blocking circumvention. What you said might apply to ad blocking itself, but does not apply to anti ad blocking. You're talking about the former. But this ticket and the discussion herein is about the latter.

[Lazza]

I am talking about anti ad blockers blocking!

Anti adblockers are unwanted applications which we therefore prevent from running. If this is circumvention (it isn't, but bear with me), then those scripts themselves would be circumventing our ability to visit websites in the first place.

Users have the right to protect themselves from unwanted software or scripts and to block them. That's what anti-virus software is all about and it's quite an old (and proven) concept.

[gnits]

@Lazza That's not what the law says. You not comprehending that doesn't make it any less a fact.

You're also being hypocrite by invoking your - supposedly existing - right to have total control over what runs on your computer and what doesn't, in arguing for a technology, that denies essentially the same right to other people (ie. the publishers). Because, you know, in the end by circumventing their anti ad blockers you deny them their right to control who can and can't access their computers (servers).

That's exactly what anti-circumvention prohibitions (like that in the DMCA) make clear. That your right to control what happens with your stuff doesn't precede the very same right of others (publishers') to control what happens to their stuff (servers, content, etc).

[Lazza]

by invoking your - supposedly existing - right to have total control over what runs on your computer and what doesn't

It's not supposedly existing, it exists and it is obvious.

that denies essentially the same right to other people (ie. the publishers)

We are not forcing any software to run on the publishers' servers. Of course we don't have admin rights on their machines.

by circumventing their anti ad blockers you deny them their right to control who can and can't access their computers (servers)

Here we go with abusing the "circumvention" meaning again. Do you also happen to eat a cheeseburger and call it a burrito?

Publishers have mean of blocking access to their contents, namely they own the HTTP servers and can decide which users to return a 403 Forbidden error code, for example. If these guys want to run a piece of malware JS inside my browser, such a browser already has downloaded all the contents and that means the website returned a 200 Ok status code (which is an authorization to access the HTML source code of the page).

What about browsers without JS? Security is not done client side. If the client refuses to run some JS (because it hasn't got any obligation to do so) you cannot invoke copyright violation. Not related to DMCA at all.

[gnits]

@Lazza Do you have an actual argument to bring forward? Or just this?

Edit: I see that after I replied to you, you deleted your pointless and vulgar rant and replaced it with a completely different text, that at least seems to contain at least some arguments. Of course your assumptions are statements are still pointless and wrong - but the point is not that. But that you replaced your rant with a completely different text, without even just hinting at that fact. How typical of you.

[QueenOfStars]

For the love of web, will you stop feeding the troll already? It's been almost two months!
We get it; he wants to make money out of ads. Boohoo.

MOVE. ON. WITH. YOUR. LIVES.

[Lazza]

@QueenOfStars gosh, you are right. For a while I believed I was discussing with a reasonable person. I was terribly wrong. He even intentionally edited his text after I replied to him, then accused me of hiding something. A troll in every possible way.

[Giwayume]

Wow. Is this topic still open just for laughs?

[gnits]

@reek Just a heads up: Eyeo, the company behind Adblock Plus and the maintainers of EasyList blocklist are being investigated on grounds of mass copyright violation and deception of the courts: http://www.golem.de/news/adblock-plus-staatsanwaltschaft-durchsucht-werbeblocker-anbieter-eyeo-1701-125866.html

[Lazza]

Adblock Plus wins its 6th court case, brought by Der Spiegel

Eyeo GmbH has beaten back German court cases seeking to shut down its business.

JOE MULLIN - 11/29/2016, 9:05 PM

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/adblock-plus-wins-its-6th-court-case-brought-by-der-spiegel/

[gnits]

@Lazza Yeah, that's one of the cases where there are suspected to have deceived the courts (perjury), which in turn could be the very reason why they "won" in first instance (verdicts are not final in any of the cases). That said that court case is completely irrelevant here anyway, as it wasn't even about the legality of the circumvention of ad blockers in the first case. The current investigation I've referred to is.

[Zaldor]

Is it legal to look away from the TV when commercials come during your favourite TV show? Or even change channel when that happens, is it legal to cut out adverts from newspapers?

[hackerrester]

@gnits To find your answer, get a law degree and pass the bat exam in civil and criminal. Try Aak and other anti-adblockers in local courts based on your argument. Then you will get your answer.

[gnits]

Good news everyone! (Well, not so much for AAK.) Even the maintainers of EasyList seem to agree that circumvention of anti ad-blocking mechanisms is a violation of the DMCA - as they honored a removal request that's based on that exact argument, without filing a counter-notice.

easylist/easylist@a4d380a#commitcomment-23608691

It seems that my original question about the (il)legality of AAK has been answered. Thanks for everyone who chimed in on the conversation.

[QueenOfStars]

@gnits, thanks for the heads up, I will add "||functionalclam.com^$third-party" to my personal block rules immediately.

troll.

[Lazza]

Time to install this list as well:
https://github.com/paulgb/BarbBlock

[uBlock-user]

Nobody answered your question, as we do not believe in feeding trolls such as you. But feel free to live in denial, ultimately only the user decides what loads and what doesn't in his/her browser, DMCA can go fuck itself. Thanks for the entertainment.

[iamunknown2]

Actually, I agree with Tanath in the other page; we're not circumventing their access controls, since they give us the whole site and we block parts of it. They're circumventing our access controls.