YouTube’s ad blocking crackdown is facing a new challenge: privacy laws | Privacy advocates argue YouTube’s ad blocker restrictions violate the European Union’s online privacy laws.::YouTube is launching a “global effort” to crack down on ad blockers, but some privacy advocates in the European Union argue that it’s illegal.
I can’t blame them for wanting to restore monetization as adblockers removed most of the revenue from those platforms. But fighting adblockers is not a way to do this. They should either change entire YouTube business model to pay to access, or rework ads to be less annoying. If ads were not annoying as fuck, people wouldn’t be pushed to install adblock in the first place.
Adblock became popular when video ads with sound started popping up on the websites. This includes video ads in YouTube videos, people just hate to watch video ads.
For every person using an ad blocker there’s 10,000 that don’t. Going after the fraction of a percent of perceived lost revenue from people who wouldn’t click your ads or buy your products anyway is just the epitome of greed.
Agreed. There is always a subset of customers in which a business loses money. The corporations today have grown soft and cannot stomach a loss. It’s time we stop catering to weak companies and start catering to those who understand the risks associated with owning a business.
Netflix logging your IP is the equivalent of taking a photo of someone in public. Not ideal if you’re into privacy, but it’s a public place, so it’s your problem. YouTube’s Adblock detection is equivalent to patting them down to see if they have a weapon and requiring their ID. The software actively looks for changes, using technology that could detect what extensions you have installed, gather data to profile you better for ads, and monitor what you’re doing in your browser while the tab is open.
Both are ultimately for the same purpose, to prevent people from avoiding to pay them, but methods matter.
Wow, so basically blacklisting email sender’s on ip address isn’t allowed either? When is an IP address, an individual and when is it just a machine in the cloud?
GDPR doesn’t say you can never use any form of user data. It says a lot about what data is considered personal, what kind of disclosure and consent you need to setup first (mostly terms of service stuff), how you can store that data, how you can use it, and what responsibilities you have to remove or produce a copy of that data on demand. Until you’ve implemented GDPR it can be hard to understand what it is. But it’s not a super bonus +1 magic shield for all information.
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This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Sounds like a good time to be a VPN provider.
People getting crazier by the day… someone just told me I am supporting piracy by blocking ads! Like what?
From the EU, I was one of the ones that reported this.
https://european-union.europa.eu/contact-eu/write-us_en
Perhaps “'privacy laws”.
But I made a point about: monopolistic behavior of Google
And what is funny:
Your FBI recommends the use of adblockers.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/fbi-recommends-installing-an-ad-blocker-to-dodge-scammers
So Google are a bunch of scammers?
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I can’t blame them for wanting to restore monetization as adblockers removed most of the revenue from those platforms. But fighting adblockers is not a way to do this. They should either change entire YouTube business model to pay to access, or rework ads to be less annoying. If ads were not annoying as fuck, people wouldn’t be pushed to install adblock in the first place. Adblock became popular when video ads with sound started popping up on the websites. This includes video ads in YouTube videos, people just hate to watch video ads.
For every person using an ad blocker there’s 10,000 that don’t. Going after the fraction of a percent of perceived lost revenue from people who wouldn’t click your ads or buy your products anyway is just the epitome of greed.
Agreed. There is always a subset of customers in which a business loses money. The corporations today have grown soft and cannot stomach a loss. It’s time we stop catering to weak companies and start catering to those who understand the risks associated with owning a business.
Wouldn’t Netflix’s password sharing fall under the same law then?
They use user information like connected wifi and position data to determine if a device is used away from the defined “home”.
No.
Netflix logging your IP is the equivalent of taking a photo of someone in public. Not ideal if you’re into privacy, but it’s a public place, so it’s your problem. YouTube’s Adblock detection is equivalent to patting them down to see if they have a weapon and requiring their ID. The software actively looks for changes, using technology that could detect what extensions you have installed, gather data to profile you better for ads, and monitor what you’re doing in your browser while the tab is open.
Both are ultimately for the same purpose, to prevent people from avoiding to pay them, but methods matter.
Incorrect. https://gdpr.eu/eu-gdpr-personal-data/ states IP addresses are personal data.
Wow, so basically blacklisting email sender’s on ip address isn’t allowed either? When is an IP address, an individual and when is it just a machine in the cloud?
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GDPR doesn’t say you can never use any form of user data. It says a lot about what data is considered personal, what kind of disclosure and consent you need to setup first (mostly terms of service stuff), how you can store that data, how you can use it, and what responsibilities you have to remove or produce a copy of that data on demand. Until you’ve implemented GDPR it can be hard to understand what it is. But it’s not a super bonus +1 magic shield for all information.