Hanff first reached out to the European Commission about the use of ad blocker detection tools in 2016. In response to his concerns, the commission confirmed that scripts used to detect ad blockers also fall under Article 5.3 of the ePrivacy Directive, a rule that requires websites to ask for user consent before storing or accessing information on a user’s device, such as cookies. “Article 5.3 does not limit itself to any particular type of information or technology, such as cookies,” the commission wrote at the time. “Article 5(3) would also apply to the storage by websites of scripts in users’ terminal equipment to detect if users have installed or are using ad blockers.”
Tldr:Just googled it and this came up. wasnt sure if it was illegal (its not). in the EU theres a guy named Alexander Hanff who very much thinks it should be and I agree.
They are monitoring traffic and scripts and storing information about the user without consent. In other words spyware. And from what you said “many adblockers arent even add ons” isnt that worse? The Pihole for example being detected and a corp like google storing that your ip has one. Makes me very uncomfortable.
please no replies with “youtube is providing a serivice that needs to be paid for, ads are a nessecarry blah blah blah.” It doesnt justify spyware.
You don’t need to store any cookies to detect adblockers. I don’t know what method YouTube is using but a trivial method is to simply track which of your requests are passing. If all of them are fine except for all the tracking and ad scripts, you can be pretty sure that there’s an ad blocker. This works especially well for pi hole or whatever, because blocking requests is the only method they have for blocking ads.
Websites dont have the ability to see what addons you are using. Youtube must be tracking and storing local traffic data to accomplish this.
Seems illegal
You can tell when someone is blocking ads without seeing add-ons. Many ad blockers aren’t even add ons
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/7/23950513/youtube-ad-blocker-crackdown-privacy-advocates-eu
Tldr:Just googled it and this came up. wasnt sure if it was illegal (its not). in the EU theres a guy named Alexander Hanff who very much thinks it should be and I agree.
They are monitoring traffic and scripts and storing information about the user without consent. In other words spyware. And from what you said “many adblockers arent even add ons” isnt that worse? The Pihole for example being detected and a corp like google storing that your ip has one. Makes me very uncomfortable.
please no replies with “youtube is providing a serivice that needs to be paid for, ads are a nessecarry blah blah blah.” It doesnt justify spyware.
You don’t need to store any cookies to detect adblockers. I don’t know what method YouTube is using but a trivial method is to simply track which of your requests are passing. If all of them are fine except for all the tracking and ad scripts, you can be pretty sure that there’s an ad blocker. This works especially well for pi hole or whatever, because blocking requests is the only method they have for blocking ads.