
AdBlock Plus Now Illegal in Germany - vincent_s
https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmeedia.de%2F2016%2F06%2F24%2Faxel-springer-vs-eyeo-olg-koeln-erklaert-geschaeftsmodell-von-adblock-plus-fuer-rechtswidrig%2F&edit-text=&act=url
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embik
Please note the court explicitly considers ad blocking legal. This is about
ABP's "acceptable apps" program.

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Kristine1975
HN headline is click-bait. The article's headline is: "Axel Springer vs. Eyeo:
OLG Köln stated business model of AdBlock Plus unlawful".

So this _only_ concerns Eyeo and its "pay us, or nobody will see your ads"
business model. Adblocking is legal. Even using ABP is legal.

Much ado about nothing, unless you're Eyeo.

Edit: This isn't even about adblocking, but about anti-competitive behavior:
[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gesetze-
im-internet.de%2Fuwg_2004%2F__4a.html&edit-text=)

The lawsuit has been going on since at least 2014. Here are some comments by a
German lawyer on it:
[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.internet-
law.de%2F2014%2F12%2Fsind-adblocker-wettbewerbswidrig.html&edit-text=)

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vincent_s
Article says "the OLG forbade the distribution of Adblock Plus", headline says
Adblock Plus is illegal.

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pavel_lishin
Weird and silly mismatch. Might as well write a headline saying "Sex is
illegal in Texas" because the article says that it's illegal to offer up
services as a prostitute.

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anilgulecha
Can the title be changed to "Whitelisting by adblock plus declared illegal in
Germany" to stop the confusion.

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bediger4000
What if I run my own DNS aggregator (dnsmasq, say), and send the most
egregious advertisers to 127.0.0.1 via DNS lookup?

Does that count as an "ad blocker"?

See:

[https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts)
[http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/](http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/)

Someone told me it was pretty effective to do this.

~~~
dmfdmf
> and send the most egregious advertisers to 127.0.0.1 via DNS lookup?

I've done this with my local HOST file and its only moderately effective. The
problem is that 127.0.0.1 never replies and the timeout period causes the page
load to stall.

If I knew how I'd redirect requests to a local IP running a webserver that
replies 410-Gone, 202-Accepted, 200-OK (or whatever code necessary) to any and
all requests so the requesting page moves on and doesn't stall. If I was even
more talented I could set up a public webserver and share it with the world so
we could all point to it and block these ad servers that are ruining the
internet.

NB: I'm not opposed to ads but the marketers need to realize the WWW is not TV
and stop forcing unwanted, irritating and obnoxious ads and auto-play videos.

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Kristine1975
_> The problem is that 127.0.0.1 never replies and the timeout period causes
the page load to stall._

You could try 0.0.0.0.

~~~
dmfdmf
Would that reply to HTTP requests or still timeout?

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vincent_s
see also:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945836](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945836)

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ramtatatam
Yeah, let them try to detect I'm using adblocker :-) And what will prevent
community from developing same thing under different name?

\-- Edit -- funny to find out this bothered somebody enough to down vote.
Probably some German bureaucrat unhappy somebody's flagging dead laws before
they are pushed through people's throats :-)

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bgun
You obviously didn't read the article, but the terrible headline is at least
partly to blame for this.

~~~
ramtatatam
Well, I did not - shame on me :-) Though didn't think the title could be that
far from actual content.

