
Axel Springer Goes After iOS 9 Ad Blockers in New Legal Battle - danso
http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/23/axel-springer-goes-after-ios-9-ad-blockers-in-new-legal-battle/
======
FussyZeus
_Axel Springer is not the only publisher that’s taking a confrontational
approach to dealing with ad blockers, The FT recently reported. U.K. newspaper
City AM banned ad blockers from its website; U.K. broadcasters ITV and Channel
4 have now done the same; and the Washington Post redirects readers to a
subscription page, or asks them to sign up to newsletters, or disable their
ad-blocking software. Even Yahoo has gotten in on the action, blocking users
from their email when they have AdBlock running._

This goes right to the heart of the issue so I felt it was worth highlighting:
Who cares if they lock out their content? There are literally millions of news
sources on the Internet, all (hilariously) copying each other's posts on
what's trending in news, with often amusing (or horrifying) results when the
stories are wrong. Oh, I can't read this story on Yahoo? Well I guess I'll
just have to pick from the ten thousand freaking other copies of the same
information available elsewhere.

We have TOO. MANY. NEWS. WEBSITES. The ad space isn't worth shit because the
same ads are being pushed on millions of pages many times over, and the public
is so desensitized to them at this point that the click rate is dropping like
a safe.

If you work for one of these publishers, get a new job. Fast.

~~~
hsod
I'm totally in favor of this type of solution. The go-to justification around
here is "it's my computer, I'll use it to display anything I want, just
because you served me data over HTTP doesn't give you the right to dictate
what's on my screen."

I think it's is a pretty compelling argument, but if we're being fair then the
provider should have the right NOT to serve you data based on what you intend
to do with it.

~~~
CaptSpify
> I think it's is a pretty compelling argument, but if we're being fair then
> the provider should have the right NOT to serve you data based on what you
> intend to do with it.

As an ad-blocker: I absolutely agree, however, there's no shortage of people
offering me the same exact content elsewhere. Basically, supply and demand end
up in the consumer's favor.

Likewise: "...essentially all of the ad supported sites I visit are
diversions" \-
[https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/web/AdSupportedWebD...](https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/web/AdSupportedWebDeathView)

------
iMerNibor
It's pretty stupid what they try to do to get even more money

They somehow managed to get a law in place which prohibits quoting of even
small passages online (i.e. Google News) without paying for it. What did
Google do? Simply removed them from the results, they tried to sue and lost.
Now they gave Google permission to include them for free. What about the
smaller services? Who cares about those - loads of news aggregators shut down
in response.

Now that (some) adblockers have been ruled legal they sued a bunch of people
(youtuber, the adblock forum) for providing instruction on how to get around
the anti-adblocker wall they put in Fun times

~~~
Arnt
Even more money? The delicious graphs at
[http://www.bildblog.de/auflage.php](http://www.bildblog.de/auflage.php) show
twelve consecutive years of decline. That's not "even more money".

~~~
1ris
That's only offline sales. They know this business is dead and aggressively
push their online services.

I don't see a downward trend in their over-all profits:
[http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/451654/umfrage...](http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/451654/umfrage/gewinn-
der-axel-springer-se-quartalszahlen/)

~~~
zuzun
> Größter Wachstumstreiber ist das Geschäft mit Kleinanzeigen im Internet wie
> Immobilien-, Job- und Autoportalen. Hier verfolge Springer eine "sehr
> aggressive Wachstumsstrategie", sagte Döpfner. Das Ergebnis in diesen
> Rubrikenmärkten kletterte binnen Jahresfrist um 35,2 Prozent auf 221
> Millionen Euro und steuerte damit rund 44 Prozent des gesamten
> Konzerngewinns bei. [1]

But most of their profits are generated by their online markets for cars,
houses and jobs, not their digital journalism.

[1]
[http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article138064544/Digitalstrate...](http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article138064544/Digitalstrategie-
bringt-Axel-Springer-Gewinne-ein.html)

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2muchcoffeeman
I started using iOS ad blockers on day one. Judging by the amount I have to
recharge - I'm on pre paid - I use about 50% of the data I used to and spend
proportionally less.

I also stopped using the Twitter and Facebook apps in favour of the mobile web
sites. I only see Twitter ads now.

There really needs to be another model.

~~~
thetmkay
Totally agree. The ad-subsidised business model is flawed on so many levels.
Personally the biggest one for me is that the evolution of ads moves less away
from information and more towards emotional manipulation.

Question is - what other model? Would you give money to news?

~~~
CaptSpify
personally I wouldn't, but that's because I can get the news via 1000 other
sites for free. I freely admit it's not fair, but I'm not sure what the answer
is

------
easytiger
> “The results are beyond our expectations,” said Springer chief exec Mathias
> Döpfner at the time. “Over two-thirds of the users concerned switched off
> their adblocker.” He also noted that the Bild.de website received an
> additional 3 million visits from users who could now see the ads in the
> first two weeks of the experiment going live.

Then trying to shut down ad blockers by legal routes must be completely
pointless if just asking people is so effective?

------
adrianN
Soon in the news: Comcast sues to make going to the bathroom during commercial
breaks illegal.

~~~
danieldk
Sssht, you might give them ideas. I am cynical enough to believe that they
will add a IR heartrate sensor (a la XBox One Kinect) to 'pause entertainment'
when nobody is in the room.

Formulated like that, it even sounds like a feature ;).

~~~
afandian
Spotify won't let you mute during adverts and will pause if it detects the
system volume drop quickly.

They can't detect the volume on external speakers. But there's no reason why
they couldn't with a microphone.

~~~
brightsize
iHeart, at least on Android, will download (using precious cell bandwidth)
video ads and play them, during which time it disables the "back" button.
You're forced to let the ad play. You can still switch to another app while
this is going on, but IIRC you can't turn off the audio part of the ad by
doing so. My "solution" when listening to iHeart is to keep the Android
settings app running with the iHeart app selected, ready to "Force stop" it.

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axx
Oh well. It's like Music Lables vs Napster all over again.

The funny twist is, Springer gives away content for free. They just imply that
there is "some kind of contract" between a website provider an a visitor, that
the visitor has to "pay" for the content by viewing Ads.

Most people (especially in Germany) don't block Ads because they hate Ads.
They block because they hate tracking, slow websites, bandwidth usage etc.

The sad thing is, most of the big publishers, that rally against ad blocker
don't have the guts to just go subscription-only.

Since they love their old business model so much, why not try that on the web?
Because showing Ads and sell visitors to tracking and ad networks is so much
easier.

Just to clarify: If the visitor has the choice to block ads, publishers should
have the choice to block adblocker-enabled visitors.

~~~
granos
Is it that they "don't have the guts" or that they just don't have a product
offering enough value to support itself on a subscription model?

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zem
i was more startled to learn in passing that yahoo was blocking people's email
if they blocked ads. that one seems particularly desperate, given how the last
thing yahoo needs now is more reasons for people to abandon them.

~~~
jacquesm
That one is right along the lines of 'the beatings will continue until morale
improves'.

~~~
coldcode
Or the beatings will continue until morale improves unless you notice the door
is unlocked.

~~~
jacquesm
Yes, you'd think they knew about that before they made that policy. It really
baffles me how someone might think this was a good enough idea to actually
implement and that nobody stopped it baffles me even more.

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beedogs
So, they've already lost in the German courts vs. ABP; why do they get to keep
going after other companies with the same bogus arguments?

~~~
qb45
Quite obviously, they are trying the American model of suing everybody in
sight again and again until they give up.

~~~
gcr
I wonder how much all this litigation will cost their bottom line.

------
jacquesm
Axel Springer should really read up on the Streisand effect. If they hold on a
bit longer the whole world will know about these absolutely terrible ad
blockers.

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aikah
Which means that all the data minimizing the scale of the blocking was a lie,
people are massively blocking ads and the whole ad industry is dying faster
than its player want to admit.

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inevitable2
My solution is pretty simple: censor axel springer and their websites from my
entire network. Blockr or not, nobody on my network and VPN needs to see their
filthy pages anymore.

~~~
reustle
> on my network and VPN

Do you run a network other people use? Are you really going to censor Springer
because of a personal opinion?

~~~
inevitable2
Well those axel brats are suing out of personal opinion too, your point?

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thetmkay
Two things seemingly are true:

1\. information is a commodity (including most news)

2\. information is valuable

I'm looking at this problem right now because which answer to this question is
chosen is critical in shaping how we as a society function (and what the
online landscape will look like).

Do people (in general) care about good information sources (your own personal
criteria) to give money to them (by whitelisting, paying for subscription,
donations etc)?

Full disclosure: I'm working on a project that is trying to tackle this
problem.

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bsg75
Good reason to buy Blockr.

