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During an outbreak of common sense in a Hamburg, Germany, court it was ruled that.. no, advertisers don't get their own way every time.
Zeit Online GmbH and Handelsblatt GmbH as representatives of the advertising world filed suit against Eyeo GmbH (the owners of AdBlock Plus) claiming that the latter should not be allowed to distribute software (a browser plugin that blocks ads) that disrupts their income stream.
The court did not look favourably on the advertisers' case.
From an article in The Register :
Ben Williams, a director of Eyeo, wrote in a blog: "The Hamburg court decision is an important one, because it sets a precedent that may help us avoid additional lawsuits and expenses defending what we feel is an obvious consumer right: giving people the ability to control their own screens by letting them block annoying ads and protect their privacy."
This has ramifications for another simmering case in neighboring France.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acharax on Wednesday April 22 2015, @05:00PM
Tracking isn't the only real issue with ads, ad firms are prime vectors for driveby malware installs and have been so for a very, very long time because they don't care what gets distributed through their networks (and refusing to be held responsible for any resulting damages) as long as they get paid enough, which is a much bigger threat at the end of the day as far as I see it.
I don't believe for a second most of these firms have any real review process, and if they do, allot more than one or two interns to the task of briefly skimming over 1000 or so submissions. Hell, it'd be very easy to curtail most of this by returning to simple unobtrusive text and banner ads, but serving active content is much, much more lucrative because those ads are harder for the average Joe to ignore.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday April 23 2015, @06:40AM
Isn't it a crime to distribute malware?
So you could have ClamAV look over all your ads, then if it finds some malware it files an automated report with CERT.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]