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.
I think youre locked into percieving this as a user who has a google account who has agreed to google’s terms and services. I can go on youtube with no account and watch content with an adblocker on a completely fresh system and IP adress and have the same experience. From what you are saying by simply visiting the website you are agreeing to be tracked and marked as a adblock user. (This obviously happens all the time but lets not let google get away with it) Regardless of the detection method.
I think this would be fine if google forced you to click agree to terms to veiw content. But they dont, so in essence they are collecting data about you and your terminal without your consent which should be illegal. Obviously im bias against google, but i genuinely think it sets a bad precedent. Especially with how shitty and ad flooded the internet has become.
I can go on youtube with no account and watch content
You think they can’t change that at the flip of a switch? I’m honestly shocked they haven’t forced login. There’s not really any serious competition, people would still watch it.
Just because they’ve been dumb with privacy laws, doesn’t mean they have to do that to find adblockers.
It’s not illegal for them to record IP’s and Sockets
It’s also not illegal for them to track what requests you make and when based on that IP. The same requirements to stream video to your browser can be used to track your watch time.
On those two pieces of data, they could refuse to serve video data.
They could also, at the drop of the hat turn on DRM for everyone. That would destroy yt-dlp for ages as the original team refuses to implement it and there aren’t any plugins yet that would do so. It would also be very difficult to keep up with that.
In the not-so-distant future, they’ll break downloaders in ways that aren’t easy to fix which will more or less break adblockers as well because it’s different sides of the same tech.
We can still login/watch/record/decommercial at that point. I suspect if it gets to that, they’ll just run commercials while the streams are running like broadcast tv has been. maybe picture in picture, maybe overlay.
I agree with every single point youve made. Except
There’s not really any serious competition, people would still watch it.
If youtube stared pulling a reddit and implementing changes that users felt offended enough by many people would probably do what we are doing now. And find a decentralized platform like peertube or lemmy. Obviously reddit and youtube are not going anywhere but its still competiton even if its not “serious”. a few hundred thousand users is alot in terms of profit.
Just because they’ve been dumb with privacy laws, doesn’t mean they have to do that to find adblockers.
Google has all of the cards. like you said forced logins, drm, in stream adverts are all 1000% in our near future. I just think that before we actually get there we shouldnt roll over and take the abuse.
Genuinely appreciate the discourse on this, but im slightly frustrated that i simply implied that it “seems illegal” and I have multiple people explaining that its not illegal, they dont need to x and y to detect adblock, and that google has all the power. IM AWARE i just wish we could hold them accountable for the MANY infractions on privacy that theyve been guiltly of in the past, and continue to be, and see little to no repercussions.
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.
It could be a simple as you completed the 15-minute stream in 15:00 minutes at 1x and aren’t a paid premium subscriber
I think youre locked into percieving this as a user who has a google account who has agreed to google’s terms and services. I can go on youtube with no account and watch content with an adblocker on a completely fresh system and IP adress and have the same experience. From what you are saying by simply visiting the website you are agreeing to be tracked and marked as a adblock user. (This obviously happens all the time but lets not let google get away with it) Regardless of the detection method.
I think this would be fine if google forced you to click agree to terms to veiw content. But they dont, so in essence they are collecting data about you and your terminal without your consent which should be illegal. Obviously im bias against google, but i genuinely think it sets a bad precedent. Especially with how shitty and ad flooded the internet has become.
You think they can’t change that at the flip of a switch? I’m honestly shocked they haven’t forced login. There’s not really any serious competition, people would still watch it.
Just because they’ve been dumb with privacy laws, doesn’t mean they have to do that to find adblockers.
It’s not illegal for them to record IP’s and Sockets It’s also not illegal for them to track what requests you make and when based on that IP. The same requirements to stream video to your browser can be used to track your watch time.
On those two pieces of data, they could refuse to serve video data.
They could also, at the drop of the hat turn on DRM for everyone. That would destroy yt-dlp for ages as the original team refuses to implement it and there aren’t any plugins yet that would do so. It would also be very difficult to keep up with that.
In the not-so-distant future, they’ll break downloaders in ways that aren’t easy to fix which will more or less break adblockers as well because it’s different sides of the same tech.
We can still login/watch/record/decommercial at that point. I suspect if it gets to that, they’ll just run commercials while the streams are running like broadcast tv has been. maybe picture in picture, maybe overlay.
I agree with every single point youve made. Except
If youtube stared pulling a reddit and implementing changes that users felt offended enough by many people would probably do what we are doing now. And find a decentralized platform like peertube or lemmy. Obviously reddit and youtube are not going anywhere but its still competiton even if its not “serious”. a few hundred thousand users is alot in terms of profit.
Google has all of the cards. like you said forced logins, drm, in stream adverts are all 1000% in our near future. I just think that before we actually get there we shouldnt roll over and take the abuse.
Genuinely appreciate the discourse on this, but im slightly frustrated that i simply implied that it “seems illegal” and I have multiple people explaining that its not illegal, they dont need to x and y to detect adblock, and that google has all the power. IM AWARE i just wish we could hold them accountable for the MANY infractions on privacy that theyve been guiltly of in the past, and continue to be, and see little to no repercussions.