Two German web publishers have lost the battle in court against the creator of software ad blocking “Adblock Plus” in a court in Hamburg. Both publishers want want to prevent “Adblock Plus” tech being used on their pages.
The newspapers Die Zeit and Handelsblatt which owns Zeit Online and Handelsblatt, sued the software company Eyeo, because the software threatened their ability to make money, is anti-competitive and should not be able to prevent users seeing ads on their news sites. But the court from Hamburg ruled that users do have the right to use this software.
Today, after a four-month trial, reasonable heads prevailed as the regional court in Hamburg ruled in our favor by declaring that ad blocking is, in fact, perfectly legal. I know, it’s restating the obvious. But it cost us lots of blood, sweat and tears nonetheless.
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,” was posted on their blog.
According to their statistics, this plug-in is used by over 50 million people and was being used on at least 150m browsers as of June last year.
You can find here their statement.
