
German Supreme court: Adblocking and taxing advertisers for unblocking, legal - cornholio
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/20/adblock-plus-v-axel-springer/
======
nn3
The headline is completely wrong. Bundesgerichtshof is not the German Supreme
court. It's the second highest court.

~~~
daurnimator
I was curious about this and did a little research. It seems like the higher
court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) can't be appealed to for this case; it has
authority to rule on the matter, but only as a result of the law being found
unconstitutional.

Easiest citation for this would be from
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_court#Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_court#Germany)

> When it comes to civil and criminal cases, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal
> Court of Justice) is at the top of the hierarchy of courts.

~~~
_nalply
> result of the law being found unconstitutional

To explain: this means in many cases the Federal Court of Justice is the last
court to which can be appealed. Axel Springer has already declared that they
will try to appeal, but this will be difficult. To appeal they have to show
that their constitutional rights _might_ have been violated.

Another note: Then there is the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
In exceptional cases this court can be appealed to, for example if a national
court's decision has violated a human right. Germany has ratified the European
Human Rights and declared that they accept rulings of the European Court of
Human Rights. However it is extremely dubious that a company could ever appeal
to this court.

(A side note to give an example what this Court decides: A Swiss case has been
ruled: A Filipina mother with children in Switzerland divorced from her Swiss
father tried to enter Switzerland. The denial was deemed to violate the human
right to have a family and Switzerland was ordered to let the woman enter the
country.)

~~~
SiempreViernes
I guess you mean in exceptional cases you can _successfully_ appeal to to the
ECHR, or is there some special rules that mean Germans have particularly
restricted appeal rights to the ECHR?

~~~
guitarbill
Axel Springer is a company, not a person or persons. Companies don't have
human rights, so they obviously cannot appeal to the ECHR.

As for exceptional cases, I think the gist is any case that can involve human
rights violations is exceptional, as the majority of cases don't even get into
the territory of potentially violating the European Convention on Human
Rights.

~~~
_nalply
It's a bit complicated. In civil law jurisdictions a company can be a
«person». As such the company can file complaints or be accused of something.
The law defines whether an organisation can be viewed as a person. For example
in Switzerland associations are legal persons as long as their organs are
operative. Organs of a legal person are for example the board, the general
assembly and others.

This means, a company can suffer from a violation of protected rights. An
example is the right for information (a form of free speech).

Whether the ECHR would ever accept or has already accepted a complaint from a
company I don't know. After all companies aren't really humans.

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leeoniya
> “an attack on the heart of the free media”

in most contexts this is 'free' as in 'freedom' whereas here [perhaps
coincidentally] it's 'free' as in 'free beer'

~~~
skrause
Fortunately in German we have two different words for "free as in freedom"
("frei") and "free as in free beer" ("kostenlos"), so it's completely
unambiguous that the publishers were talking about freedom.

~~~
contoraria
"freie Medien" et al are idiomatic. "frei" still subsumes "kostenlos" in the
general case (e.g. free entry). English has "gratis" or "free of charge", too.

~~~
franciscop
Wait is "gratis" an actual, common English word? As a Spaniard I thought it
was a joke kind of thing or used in extreme cases to differentiate, but that
it was not really used in English (it _is_ a common word in Spanish).

Similar to "libre".

~~~
monetus
Its not uncommon in my experience as a native speaker. I feel like the context
of gratis is more transactional than the context of free; eg. "Its a free
country" makes more sense than "Its a gratis country".

~~~
franciscop
Yeah, "gratis" literaly means "free of charge". If you ever see a "gratis
country" let me know (;

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Entangled
I wonder if adblockers can charge advertisers for unblocking and give half of
that money to users who opt-in respecting those who don't.

That's a billion dollar market waiting for disruption.

~~~
IAmEveryone
I think all the “paying the users“ schemes are bullshit. I’ve heard these
ideas for a decade or more, and can’t think of a successful implementation.

I don’t want to get paid breadcrumbs for my time or attention.

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smoyer
So if Axel Springer ultimately prevails won't people just switch to ad-
blockers without white-lists? I can't see this changing the financial
condition of Axel Springer but it does remove the appearance of an ad
publisher paying "protection money".

~~~
Krasnol
This just another failed juristical attempt of the private media corporations
here in Germany to hold onto a world that won't come back again. Just with
this, they drew an immense amount of attention to the possibilities of
AdBlocking. Articles now explain how they work, where you can get it or what
harm may come from ads, making it available and desirable to people who never
bothered before.

Their other big war is on the public broadcasting system. Making it more
popular. This time for the younger audience.

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expertentipp
There is way too much taxpayer’s money wasted on this dispute.

~~~
matt4077
There is absolutely no taxpayer money wasted, because civil trials are paid
for by the losing party.

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Tomte
Those costs aren‘t nearly covering the real costs, because otherwise justice
would be really expensive.

~~~
matt4077
In this case, costs for the first trial alone are 45000 euros. Appeals are
twice that. That should be plenty to cover the judge’s salary.

Try it yourself: [https://www.foris.com/en/service-center/litigation-costs-
cal...](https://www.foris.com/en/service-center/litigation-costs-
calculator.html?tx_datamintsforiscalc_pi1%5Baction%5D=index&tx_datamintsforiscalc_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D=ProcessCost)

I used a million as the disputed amount, which is within the usual range for
such trials.

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pimmen
Nice ads you're running there. Would be a shame if something were to block
them.

~~~
pgeorgi
Since neither the blocking functionality nor the actual blocking rules are
shipped with any browser, that's somewhat hyperbolic.

Users can still decide which code and data ends up on their computer. If they
trust Eyeo more than Axel Springer Verlag, that's their decision to make. Axel
Springer is free to refuse serving those users.

