Are viewers violating the user agreement? Or maybe the platform itself violates their rights?
Popular video hosting service YouTube has stepped up its global campaign against ad blockers in recent months. This caused outrage among European human rights activists, who have already appealed to regulators to find out how legitimate such measures are.
One of the initiators of the protest was a British cybersecurity expert Alexander Hanff. In October, he filed a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission. Hanff claims that scripts for detecting ad filters are actually spyware installed without the user's consent.
"Any technology that is used to spy on my devices is unethical and illegal," he says.
The Commission confirms that YouTube violates a number of European laws, including article 5.3 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive. According to this document, site owners are required to obtain explicit consent from users to monitor their online activity.
Now, if a person logs on to YouTube with the filter enabled, a window is displayed on the entire screen with a request to either disable blocking and watch videos with ads, or sign up for a paid YouTube Premium subscription.
Such tough measures caused an outflow of some of the audience to other video services, where there are no restrictions yet. Someone is looking for new ways to circumvent YouTube's mechanisms by installing various browser add-ons.
YouTube itself started testing ad filter blocking back in June, but initially it only affected a small percentage of viewers. However, when the experiment showed positive results, the restrictions were extended to everyone.
Technically, blocking is implemented in two ways. The first step is loading a special JavaScript code that checks whether page elements have been blocked. The second one is detecting the absence of scripts required to display ads.
Hanff's complaint is being actively discussed by regulators. If the fact of violation is still confirmed, YouTube may face a large fine and a ban on the use of anti-blocking devices in the EU.
Activists hope that this will force the company to abandon controversial methods and set a precedent for the entire online advertising market.
"I've been fighting for the rights of users for almost 20 years, and if YouTube thinks it can follow people with impunity, I won't allow it," Hanff said.
Members of the European Parliament are also interested in banning anti-lock brakes. German MP Patrick Breyer in his post on Mastodon called the actions of YouTube an attempt to "teach us to total surveillance." He also sent a request to the European Commission to investigate the situation.
Meanwhile, YouTube representative Christopher Lawton only repeated the company's previous position: ad blockers violate the user agreement, and the fight against them is necessary so that content authors do not lose income. At the same time, the company is ready to cooperate with regulators and answer any questions.
It is still unclear how this story will end. However, Russian users can take a deep breath – so far, the scandal with anti-blockers will not affect us.
Popular video hosting service YouTube has stepped up its global campaign against ad blockers in recent months. This caused outrage among European human rights activists, who have already appealed to regulators to find out how legitimate such measures are.
One of the initiators of the protest was a British cybersecurity expert Alexander Hanff. In October, he filed a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission. Hanff claims that scripts for detecting ad filters are actually spyware installed without the user's consent.
"Any technology that is used to spy on my devices is unethical and illegal," he says.
The Commission confirms that YouTube violates a number of European laws, including article 5.3 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive. According to this document, site owners are required to obtain explicit consent from users to monitor their online activity.
Now, if a person logs on to YouTube with the filter enabled, a window is displayed on the entire screen with a request to either disable blocking and watch videos with ads, or sign up for a paid YouTube Premium subscription.
Such tough measures caused an outflow of some of the audience to other video services, where there are no restrictions yet. Someone is looking for new ways to circumvent YouTube's mechanisms by installing various browser add-ons.
YouTube itself started testing ad filter blocking back in June, but initially it only affected a small percentage of viewers. However, when the experiment showed positive results, the restrictions were extended to everyone.
Technically, blocking is implemented in two ways. The first step is loading a special JavaScript code that checks whether page elements have been blocked. The second one is detecting the absence of scripts required to display ads.
Hanff's complaint is being actively discussed by regulators. If the fact of violation is still confirmed, YouTube may face a large fine and a ban on the use of anti-blocking devices in the EU.
Activists hope that this will force the company to abandon controversial methods and set a precedent for the entire online advertising market.
"I've been fighting for the rights of users for almost 20 years, and if YouTube thinks it can follow people with impunity, I won't allow it," Hanff said.
Members of the European Parliament are also interested in banning anti-lock brakes. German MP Patrick Breyer in his post on Mastodon called the actions of YouTube an attempt to "teach us to total surveillance." He also sent a request to the European Commission to investigate the situation.
Meanwhile, YouTube representative Christopher Lawton only repeated the company's previous position: ad blockers violate the user agreement, and the fight against them is necessary so that content authors do not lose income. At the same time, the company is ready to cooperate with regulators and answer any questions.
It is still unclear how this story will end. However, Russian users can take a deep breath – so far, the scandal with anti-blockers will not affect us.
