Today I filed a formal complaint against #YouTube with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner for their illegal deployment of #adblock detection technologies.
Under Article 5(3) of 2002/58/EC YouTube are legally obligated to obtain consent before storing or accessing information already stored on an end user's terminal equipment unless it is strictly necessary for the provisions of the requested service.
In 2016 the EU Commission confirmed in writing that adblock detection requires consent.
I’ll say it again: Google pays 5-year-old “influencers” millions of dollars. They have always harvested your data to provide these free services - selling ads was just icing. They still harvest your data and sell ads and they still make the same money they’ve always made - only now they are insisting that everyone watch ads or pay for it as well. And of course, eventually YouTube will insist that you watch ads and pay for it. This is the equivalent of “network decay” for streaming services. This is unreasonable and while there are exceptions to the rule, most people have the same reaction to what Google is doing here: surprise, and dismay, if not outright anger and disgust.
Yet every single thread about it on the Internet is utterly overflowing with people lecturing us about how we shouldn’t expect something for nothing, as if we aren’t fully aware that this is the most transparent of straw men. These people insist that we are the problem for daring to block ads - and further - that we should be thrilled to pay Google for this content, as they are. And they are! They just can’t get enough of paying Google for YouTube! It’s morally upright, it’s the best experience available and money flows so freely for everyone these days, we should all be so lucky to be able to enjoy paying Google the way they do. And of course it’s all so organic, these comments.
Suggest that Google pays people to engage this narrative, however, and you will be derided and downvoted into oblivion as if you were a tin-foil-hat wearing maniac. This comment itself is virtually guaranteed to be responded to with a patronizing sarcastic and 100% organic comment about how lol bruh everyone who disagrees with you must be a shill.
did you just tey to pre-emptively suggest that anyone who disagrees with you is a google paid shill?
Because if so I would like to know where I can apply for my payment from Google.
I think any reasonable person knows by now that if you don’t “pay for a product you sre the product”, everyone knows youtube collects data and sells it and your eyes to advertisers that’s their business model, guess what those servers youtube runs on? aren’t free, as you yourself said, content creators aren’t free, the engineers working on YouTube aren’t free, so your suggestion is that despite this, youtube should still be free and ad/data collection free.
well do tell me, how long do you think youtube will last with your business model?
In the second quarter of 2023, Google’s revenue amounted to over 74.3 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 69.1 billion U.S. dollars registered in the same quarter a year prior.
But man if we don’t pay for youtube premium how will they survive?
that’s google not youtube though, is it? i think youtube is running at a loss still + in a normal country that shit should have been blasted apart already way too many shit is under google.
I think they have pretty recently finally become profitable thanks to the increased amount of ads. Although you could always make the argument before that the data YouTube provides to Google that allowed their ad and data empire to thrive is invaluable whether YouTube directly profits or not.
OMG but the people I base my entire personality on use that platform, ergo, everyone needs to vicariously support me thought them, and any maneuver to the contrary is an attack on the very core of my essence!
And one of them immediately down voted you. I wonder why they’re here on Lemmy instead of continuing to support Reddit?
They clearly like to be bottoms to corpos.
I honestly don’t really care if people adblock or not but I think people need to acknowledge that adblock is essentially piracy. That doesn’t make it inherently bad or good but it has the same impacts as piracy at the end of the day. It’s a useful tool to use when companies start to get unreasonable but especially in the case of YouTube it impacts the amount of money the people who make the content earn.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@lemmy.world
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
So many corporate bootlickers here, damn.
I’ll say it again: Google pays 5-year-old “influencers” millions of dollars. They have always harvested your data to provide these free services - selling ads was just icing. They still harvest your data and sell ads and they still make the same money they’ve always made - only now they are insisting that everyone watch ads or pay for it as well. And of course, eventually YouTube will insist that you watch ads and pay for it. This is the equivalent of “network decay” for streaming services. This is unreasonable and while there are exceptions to the rule, most people have the same reaction to what Google is doing here: surprise, and dismay, if not outright anger and disgust.
Yet every single thread about it on the Internet is utterly overflowing with people lecturing us about how we shouldn’t expect something for nothing, as if we aren’t fully aware that this is the most transparent of straw men. These people insist that we are the problem for daring to block ads - and further - that we should be thrilled to pay Google for this content, as they are. And they are! They just can’t get enough of paying Google for YouTube! It’s morally upright, it’s the best experience available and money flows so freely for everyone these days, we should all be so lucky to be able to enjoy paying Google the way they do. And of course it’s all so organic, these comments.
Suggest that Google pays people to engage this narrative, however, and you will be derided and downvoted into oblivion as if you were a tin-foil-hat wearing maniac. This comment itself is virtually guaranteed to be responded to with a patronizing sarcastic and 100% organic comment about how lol bruh everyone who disagrees with you must be a shill.
did you just tey to pre-emptively suggest that anyone who disagrees with you is a google paid shill?
Because if so I would like to know where I can apply for my payment from Google.
I think any reasonable person knows by now that if you don’t “pay for a product you sre the product”, everyone knows youtube collects data and sells it and your eyes to advertisers that’s their business model, guess what those servers youtube runs on? aren’t free, as you yourself said, content creators aren’t free, the engineers working on YouTube aren’t free, so your suggestion is that despite this, youtube should still be free and ad/data collection free.
well do tell me, how long do you think youtube will last with your business model?
But man if we don’t pay for youtube premium how will they survive?
Revenue isn’t profit?
that’s google not youtube though, is it? i think youtube is running at a loss still + in a normal country that shit should have been blasted apart already way too many shit is under google.
I think they have pretty recently finally become profitable thanks to the increased amount of ads. Although you could always make the argument before that the data YouTube provides to Google that allowed their ad and data empire to thrive is invaluable whether YouTube directly profits or not.
why would it be invaluable? I am guessing it’s valuable amd is valued at a very close estimate at least.
Invaluable
adjective
beyond calculable or appraisable value; of inestimable worth; priceless:
-ITT
I’ve blocked maybe eight people in thirty minutes who are implicitly demanding that corporations create the law.
And one of them immediately down voted you. I wonder why they’re here on Lemmy instead of continuing to support Reddit? They clearly like to be bottoms to corpos.
I honestly don’t really care if people adblock or not but I think people need to acknowledge that adblock is essentially piracy. That doesn’t make it inherently bad or good but it has the same impacts as piracy at the end of the day. It’s a useful tool to use when companies start to get unreasonable but especially in the case of YouTube it impacts the amount of money the people who make the content earn.
removed by mod
We must trust our corporate overlords who will use AI to guide us in their right direction.