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Adblock Plus wins court battle against advertisers

Adblock Plus has heavily impacted advertisement revenue on the internet and as you can imagine, this has riled some of the advertisers up. However, it looks like the courts are on Adblock's side as the creator of the software has won a second court battle in recent weeks.

This particular legal struggle was taking place in Germany, as German TV broadcasters tried to prove that Adblock was an anti-competitive tool by threatening the market of free content, supported by adverts. The two companies attempting to outlaw Adblock this time are RTL and ProSiebenSat.1.

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Adblock Plus is a bit of a controversial topic, which got even worse when the company began accepting money from companies that wanted to be on the permanent ‘whitelist'. Companies indulging this practice include Microsoft, Google and Amazon.

Despite the fact that Adblock Plus has been downloaded over 400 million times, the German judge ruled that there were not enough users of the software to file an anti trust motion. Later on the Adblock blog, the company wrote that once again, “blocking has been found 100 per cent legal”.

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KitGuru Says: Adblock Plus is a common thing these days. However, it is important to remember that a lot of places that provide content (this very site included) can't survive without advertisement revenue. Ads are annoying but if you care about a specific site or content creator, then turning Adblock off for that specific site really helps.

Via: The Inquirer

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28 comments

  1. How the fucking fuck can it be anti-trust, then users have to specifically single this software our for installation?

    I don’t like ads. I will refuse all ads. They are shit, they waste my resources (ESPECIALLY on mobile. Some sites are night and day different with ads off). I never whitelist. I never buy anything from ads. I never click them. I don’t want to be an impression.

  2. Pretty much the same for me when I watch TV.
    I just mute the TV because I hate all the damn commercials on things i won’t buy.

    I agree, Online ads are nothing but a distraction and take up extra resources.
    I never plan on buying the crap they advertise so I don’t want to see them.

  3. I don’t particularly MIND a whole lot of ads… but I started using adblock because of the extra resources. I literally halved my RAM usage (now chrome only uses 5GB of RAM) by using Adblock. Yes, you read that right and I’m not exaggerating.

    Anyway, some ads are malicious or just plain pointless, and I think if ads were screened better (and less resource intensive in this era where people have forgotten what good optimization is) then maybe we’d consider things. But for example… if your website keeps dropping my connection to say… a video… and I keep having to refresh, and I keep seeing an ad or two each time… I’m going to install adblock. Or ads that start super super loud when you open a page. I’m gonna adblock.

  4. Lawrance Devlin

    ‘a lot of places that provide content (this very site included) can’t survive without advertisement revenue’ Oops, I’ll turn it off then. Suddenly adverts, adverts everywhere.

  5. by doing this youre encouraging websites to cease functionality when adblock is enabled. its getting more and more common.
    Also, you are stealing from youtube, whether you admit it or not. those people are getting paid by the ads you watch, you use adblock, they dont get paid.

  6. If I like a site, I disable uBlock for that site. If the ads are too intrusive, annoying or deceptive (like extensive flashing or covering article text, requiring interaction to be able to read, or just being click-bait masking as real content), I enable it again quickly. Kitguru is borderline but I’ll keep the ads enabled here for now.

  7. I don’t really mind ads, but I hate those that pop up when you click on anything and have to manually close up to three of them, sometimes popping up more in the process, that’s the reason I use apb. Fuck those advertisers.

  8. I’m not stealing from YouTube by refusing to watch their ads and that is such a fucking bullshit assessment. As though by their pushing ads in my face that I have an onus to tolerate them? This is my computer. My internet connection. My life. This is the one area of my life I can control the advertising and by the fucking gods I’ll control it.

  9. I refuse to have TV. You pay £X.XX to Sky, Virgin, or whoever per month and a TV Licence per year only to have 20 minutes of every hour be advertisements. Such utter shit.

    I have Netflix and 10TB on a home server for the house. Only time I see TV ads now are at friends houses.

  10. oh excuse me, I didnt know the content on youtube was your content.
    You arent entitled to anything.

  11. I use add block also, but I know that websites need to make money from somewhere, and their bandwidth costs money too!. For that reason I unblock websites specifically that I want to support such as 8tracks.com. Any website essentially that provides me a service for free, and doesn’t have adds that intrude on my browsing.

    Sites like youtube, I block from my browser, but still stand them on my TV and mobile as I still believe they need to be supported.

  12. I would love to have a 10 TB server for the house.
    Most I have is my 3 TB External Hard Drive and that’s almost full.

  13. 10 years ago nobody is so concerned about ads in web sites. Because at that time the ads were very few and less disturbing while browsing the internet. Now ads behave as if the system is infected by malwares by showing aggressive and obstructive ads and what else it even tracks what you do online. The most disturbing is that some ads keeps on chasing you on any website you visits which are unacceptable.

    I always use ad blocking software on my computer. uBlock Origin is a superb lightweight, high performance adblocker and it’s better than Adblock Plus.

  14. Ads from websites are for targeted audiences and if a user don’t want it, they are not one of the subject audiences therefore, you block them because you don’t want it. As simple as that. Let the ads be seen by those who want and leave the people who doesn’t want it. People will search for something if they want it.

  15. Aritra Bhattacharya

    We hated ads since the old days of TV and radio. Now in the age of internet when someone has solved that nuisance for us, the consumers are suddenly being called thieves as they not only refuse to watch ads, but block it for themselves completely. As if companies cared about how many people refused to watch ads before adblock, how many people put them in the back of their mind. I assume even if they ban adblock, the code for it will still be there providing us the convenience in some other form.

  16. The more we tolerate ads for the good of the “others”, the more the business grads/ad execs (thousand dollar shill collage certificates) in future years will pile it on. If the internet op ed cannot survive without revenue (more money) then maybe another profession is in order. Case in point many times over – I might look for a whole house Air Conditioner as mine is on its last legs and I now have people calling me over and over again and I don’t know who they are – WTF? Targeted ads are bullshit and I also have more emails that I have to block the sender along with all the other Princes that want to give me many millions of dollars from Nigeria. Also well wishers that think I am cool and want to divest their fortune to me and 17 year olds that want to date me – I am over 60 years old. Targeted ads and cookies ruin the internet. Kitguru can survive, it’s just having to stop giving more money to the internet as they may or want to pay. Youtube as well as other sites bring you in and then BAM!! targeted ads. Pandora Music Service – BAM ads included. Messes with my Zen man!. They hope that you will be OK with this and can just add a little ad revenue here and there. Do they want more? hell yes just wait little longer and they the writers will want to send their son to an expensive college – mo money please!

  17. It’s mostly cobbled together from other hardrives I’ve collected over the years 🙂 I have 1x2TB, 1x3TB 3x1TB and 1x32GB SSD for the OS (I’m just shy of 10TB, of course). There’s an external 1TB plugged in too. I used a Fractal Design Node 304 for it, and a Pentium G3220. The whole thing, except the HDDs, cost less than £250.

  18. What has entitlement got to do with it? YouTube is a free site, and I block ads. I am not under any onus to watch ads and I’m not asserting my entitlement to anything.

    Ads are pointless to me. I will never buy anything from them. Most of the YouTubers I watch do paid promotions, because they pay better than ads (and that’s because there are more YouTubers these days vying for the same ad revenue – not because of ad blocking). I honestly find those better than watching a stupid car advert, or an advert about deodorant. These guys are upfront about it being paid promotion and it’s usually something they actually endorse. And it’s a win-win because it’s unblockable, and generally actually interesting.

    Suggesting it’s stealing to refuse ads is fucking despicable.

  19. I block them wherever I can, but I’m more than willing to pay a small fee to get rid of them as well. If KitGuru had a paid subscription to remove ads, I’d do that. I visit this site all the time. I like the editorials and reviews, and I understand they support this with ads, but I’m absolutely not going to view ads.

    Take XDA-Developers. If I view that on my phone, before blocking ads, it’s slow as sin to load pages. Afterwards, perfectly normal. I publish content on XDA, and have raked in hundreds of thousands of views on pages for them so I don’t feel I owe them to watch ads (Plus, as a developer and contributor, I can turn ads off in their control panel).

  20. youre fucking despicable. So its alright if the youtuber has promotions, but what if he doesnt? what if he only DOES get by with youtube ads. youre basically watching content from him and not paying the price which is watching a ten second long ad.

  21. Anyone who wants to try and get by on just YouTube ads, which are dwindling fast, needs to get a proper job, or take paid promotions if they can get them.

    The most despicable thing you said was trying to insinuate that I’m stealing because I won’t watch ads, which is utterly and totally fucking retarded. I am not under any onus to watch ads. It is not stealing to refuse to watch ads. By saying that, you’re saying anyone who uses the ad breaks on broadcast TV to make a drink, or go to the toilet, is stealing. Anyone who fast-forwards them on TiVo, or whatever else, is stealing? Fucking retarded.

  22. Then maybe the youtuber should have ads relevant to the content they produce I’d be a millionaire if I had £1 for every Computer Tech or Gun Channel who had ads for fucking deoderant or Cars or TV’s or some other crap that has nothing to do with the content they create.

    And please stop with the “feel sorry for the poor Youtuber” most of the big channels have no upfront costs bar the system,camera and ISP fee’s and most of the biog channels have their main editing system paid for by sponsors Jayz”Cents and Barnacles both have systems costing in excess of $6000 paid for by sponsors the former was given a X99 motherboard 64GB DDR4 and 3 Titan X’s with all of his watercooling components and fittings also donated by sponsors the only part he had to pay for was the 5960X and since he had a very well paid job at the time it was pocket change for him.

    I’ll stop using ABP when sites and content providers use ads relevant to the contnent they produce untill then they can sod off

  23. Even though I have downloaded AdBlock, I barely ever use it. I usually disable it for sites that rely solely on it, or, for example, Twitch, because that’s the sole source of income for some. I usually only enable AdBlock when I’m repeatedly ‘assaulted’ by obnoxious ads in the realms of ads requiring you to close them to continue, ads with sounds, click baits and such. With great adblocking, comes great responsibility.

  24. I think the issue is, is that some people feel like they’re entitled to play videogames and get paid for it. That bubble burst last year. YouTube isn’t a profession anymore.

    Disabling ads isn’t stealing.

  25. It’s about peoples choice, neither option is wrong so deal with it.

  26. ABP is the result of a need. This need (removing ads) will not go away by removing ABP. People will find another alternative. Instead of going after the player, maybe companies should go after the ball – find another way to generate revenue and build up brand recognition. Adverts are lost on millenials with an average and above IQ. They need to realize that ads, although powerful, can be done another way than simply plastering every free inch of the internet with horrible slogans and dreadful mspaint-esque art.

  27. I hope you guys enjoy tons of sponsored plugs and product placement!

  28. See the problem is not ad’s, it’s greedy site’s like this that bombard you with a ton of ad’s. Slowing down your browser and making the site not as enjoyable. For an example my ad block currently show’s 15 ad’s blocked for this site. Seriously 15 ad’s?? And for this reason alone I use ad block.