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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

The owners of Adblock Plus have prevailed in a German court yet again [theregister.co.uk]. A Munich court ruled that Adblock Plus's "acceptable ads" program was legal:

Adblock Plus has won another legal challenge in Germany against a daily newspaper which claimed its "acceptable ads" policy broke the law. The Süddeutsche Zeitung argued that Adblock Plus's German owner Eyeo GmbH should not be allowed to block ads while also offering a "whitelisting" service to advertisers.

Adblock Plus operates a whitelisting policy, whereby advertisers can apply to have their ads unblocked as long as they adhere to its "acceptable ads" policy, which does not allow the display of ads it deems intrusive. However, big corporations such as Google [theregister.co.uk], Amazon, Microsoft and Taboola have paid AdBlock Plus to allow their ads to pass through its filter software. The outfit said the ruling was its fifth court battle in Germany, this one against the paper.

From The Guardian [theguardian.com]:

It is the last of a tranche of legal cases brought by German newspaper publishers and broadcasters against the company behind Adblock Plus, Eyeo. Germany's largest newspaper publisher Axel Springer, business title Handelsblatt and broadcaster RTL Interactive [theguardian.com] are among that have unsuccessfully challenged the legality of the software.

Adblock Plus spokesperson Ben Williams said the ruling showed the court viewed adblocking as a challenge and opportunity rather than a threat. "Look, we don't want to pile on publishers here," he wrote. We know that the transition from print to online is still a huge challenge. But we view adblocking much like the court: as an opportunity, or a challenge, to innovate." However, the ruling is unlikely to mark the end of legal challenges to Eyeo, and the case could go to appeal.

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