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posted by Blackmoore on Tuesday December 09 2014, @04:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the feeding-the-hand-that-bites-you dept.

Frédéric Filloux reports at Monday Note that two groups of French publishers, the GESTE and the French Internet Advertising Bureau, are considering a lawsuit against AdBlockPlus creator Eyeo GmbH on grounds that it represents a major economic threat to their business. According to LesEchos.fr, EYEO, which publishes Adblock Plus, has developed a business model where they offer not to block publishers' advertisements for remuneration as long as the ads are judged non-intrusive (Google Translate, Original here). "Several criteria must be met as well: advertisements must be identified as such, be static and therefore not contain animation, no sound, and should not interfere with the content. A position that some media have likened to extortion."

According to Filloux the legal action misses the point. By downloading AdBlock Plus (ABP) on a massive scale, users are voting with their mice against the growing invasiveness of digital advertising. Therefore, suing Eyeo, the company that maintains ABP, is like using Aspirin to fight cancer. A different approach is required but very few seem ready to face that fact. "We must admit that Eyeo GmbH is filling a vacuum created by the incompetence and sloppiness of the advertising community’s, namely creative agencies, media buyers and organizations that are supposed to coordinate the whole ecosystem," says Filloux. Even Google has begun to realize that the explosion of questionable advertising formats has become a problem and the proof is Google's recent Contributor program that proposes ad-free navigation in exchange for a fee ranging from $1 to $3 per month. "The growing rejection of advertising AdBlock Plus is built upon is indeed a threat to the ecosystem and it needs to be addressed decisively. For example, by bringing at the same table publishers and advertisers to meet and design ways to clean up the ad mess. But the entity and leaders who can do the job have yet to be found."

 
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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @05:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @05:00AM (#124072)

    I had previously thought it was a community effort - after all, AdBlock prompts for donations.

    Perhaps someone would like to create a free software clone?

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday December 09 2014, @05:06AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 09 2014, @05:06AM (#124074) Journal

    Perhaps someone would like to create a free software clone?

    I reckon it's the "blacklist" that is actually the greatest value, not the software which enforces that list.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 2, Informative) by unauthorized on Tuesday December 09 2014, @05:11AM

    by unauthorized (3776) on Tuesday December 09 2014, @05:11AM (#124077)

    AdBlock is open-source. FOSS != free of charge. You can sell Linux CDs for as much as you like and the GPL explicitly states that you can do that.
    However, if you find this practice not to your liking, then there is fork [mozilla.org] which exists for this very reason.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 09 2014, @09:49AM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday December 09 2014, @09:49AM (#124127) Homepage
      You can also use an ABP from pre-whitelist times, which is what I do on this machine. There's another fork of it too, which I use on one of my laptops.
      Absolutely no need to support the modern ABP ad mafioso.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @06:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @06:37AM (#124090)

    adblock edge is the real deal