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.

      • lorkano@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • Coach@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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.

        • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Are ads cheaper now? I imagine with combined slots of ads, their duration, size on the screen they aren’t as expensive as they were and letting their clients get more for the same price. Compare one textual block from early android’s free apps to fullscreen video ads being a norm, same with youtube, chains of long videos. It seems they caused the deterioration of their own market. I imagine what actual statistics of clicks-per-show look like if they are so desperate. We sometimes hear of how premium superbowl or olympics ads are, and here it feels the exclusivity of access to consumer isn’t valued. You buy a slot, but your ad is sandwiched between other random products. How is that exclusive? Businesses would get used to it, but their incencitive isn’t there. If they pay big bucks, they want to buy a billboard, not a small string in a tabloid.

          As other person have said, users with blocks are a minority. But, what’s important, bashing them is a reputational thing. Google’s advertising and data-farming business. This gesture is good to promote at the board meating, to their regulars, and maybe charge a bit more. Also important that these blockers kill tracking devices like invisible pixels, so it may be a bigger reason to implement that than some loss of ad revenue.

          • lorkano@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Google is very smart with ad prices because they are actually not constant. Advertisers have bots that bid how much they want to pay for an ad, determining based on user data how much it’s worth for them, and if your bot wins, your ad is shown. That’s why if some advertiser decides to pay a lot to a lot of user groups, the same freaking ads are being shown to you all the time

  • Decentralizr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    People getting crazier by the day… someone just told me I am supporting piracy by blocking ads! Like what?

  • Ragerist@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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”.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • Khanzarate@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

        • MrOxiMoron@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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?

          • Aux@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            GDPR does NOT prohibit storing any information indefinitely if it is required for proper functioning of the service. If the service bans you by IP, they need your IP indefinitely to function properly and GDPR doesn’t apply. Just like you can’t remove yourself from a creditor black list, and it will have a lot more personal information than just an IP address.