sorry for butchering the article title, I’ve edited my post to try and reflect the intention of article
In a very general sense it is, the ads should pay for the content. But fuck them because even paid services add ads. And paying for Internet access, you can’t tell me what I can and can’t block. Good luck proving people are blocking ads at the DNS level.
i’m gonna block ads even more just to spite the germans
I’m sure most of the Germans will continue using their illegal adblockers. This ruling is ridiculous.
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How will you do that if all adblocker devs will get sued and because of that no safe-to-use adblockers are available?
Are you going to download some unknown shady binary from tor tor or other shady sources to do that?
For anyone from german courts reading this, if you pass that stupid ruling, you might be responsible for all hacked devices that got hacked over ads and/or over shady adblockers. People will not go after the ad networks, people will go after you personally. Because the whole DMCA usage is an overreach to begin with.
I’ve never been blocking ads of Axel Springer, because I’ve been blocking all of their rotten publications. Get bent, you assholes.
Yeah for anyone who doesn’t know them, this is basically the fox news of Germany. WELT, BILD, and NIUS are the biggest publications I believe and if you see them please don’t even dignify them with a read or watch.
I would say it’s the Rupert Murdoch of Germany, but potato / potato.
I was unfamiliar. I will keep that in mind going forward.
Example 624994931# for who bourgeois “democracies” are really protecting
Wow, that’s pretty crazy.
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Hah! Aaahahah, fuck you, German Court!
It can’t be said often enough: fuck Axel Springer.
No the didnt… but its still bad.
wait, you’re right. this is why I shouldn’t change titles
Thanks for the fix :)
Probably some kind of translation error. They must mean “privacy”.
You’d hope…but no
If I understand it correctly, they’re arguing that any unauthorized “modification of the computer program” (i.e. the web page) is a copyright violation.
This wouldn’t only affect adblockers… this would affect any browser feature, extension, or user script that modifies the page in any way, shape, or form… translators, easy reading modes, CSS modifiers (e.g., dark mode for pages that don’t have it, or anything that improves readability for people with vision problems), probably screen readers…
This would essentially turn web browsers into the HTML equivalent of PDF readers, without any of the customisability that’s been standard for decades…
Yeah, it’s actually really really stupid. If they say this is true, then you can say a website is changing the code of the actual browser as well
yeah I don’t know how German courts work but if rulings set precedents then people could run wild with this
Here’s a thing about LLMs, they will effectively make laws like this meaningless. Law comes in to enforce against a company building a program to block ads, extension goes off market. Someone asks their LLM “create an extension function referencing the same data set for my browser that performs the same function” boom new extension with no central point of distribution. Share the prompt on a forum, now everyone has a custom ad blocker. Or not so far down the road, LLM is directly built into the browser, no extension needed just prompt “do not display known advertisements on pages I request before loading, but perform background activity which gives feedback to the site that ads have loaded” boom done.
In a way, local LLMs are like distributed applications, they make enforcement against specific program functions pretty much impossible.
I would VERY much appreciate a court ruling that makes spreading misinformation and propaganda illegal
What could possibly go wrong with a government which can imprison people for talking about things it can arbitrarily rule “misinformation”?
Thought of this too
Something has to be done though
Very much this. See UK’s legislation for terrorism and activism and how it’s being used to squash peaceful protests for a current example.
What you should want instead is widespread independent journalism along with a transparent government, national broadcasting and a well educated, critically thinking society. If you try to control information by omission and restriction, you only make it more appealing as it seems like a cover-up. Example: how many times have you heard of the Epstein files in recent months and years? It could’ve been a grocery shopping list and the effect would’ve been the same because of how it’s been handled.
100%. Governments controlling information has always been associated with authoritarianism and oppression. This power and control is always eventually abused and misused. The solution to misinformation is information.
So they’re gonna reign in the data brokers and surveillance capitalists? Right?
time to send TCP packets containing advertisements to German IPs, then sue them for blocking my packets.
You and I both know that these precedents get concocted to be selectively applied. There’s no concern for the actual letter of the law here, it’s just a means to an end.
