It's like they think the only way to make money is to drown us in ads based off the telemetry they scoop up and we're entitled brats for wanting to have a say in how our data is harvested/used against us.
That's their business model. Drowning us in ads is literally how they make money. They aren't a tech company. They're an ad aggregation company. They collect data via having users use freemium services. They use that data to create anonymized profiles of millions or billions of people. They break those profiles down into subsets. And then they let ad companies buy the ability for Google to target those users with ads based on things they're likely to buy based on the data that Google has collected. It's a much more effective way of marketing ads than just playing ad spots on tv or on radio. Better than billboards and magazine spreads etc. That's literally what Google (and Apple, and Amazon even) do. It's what Facebook does. It's what most social media does. Their tech? Just a way to get you to buy into an ecosystem so you continue to feed the profile and the algorithm and see the ads.
In the second quarter of 2023, Google's revenue amounted to over 74.3 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 69.1 billion U.S. dollars registered in the same quarter a year prior.
But man if we don't pay for youtube premium how will they survive?
I'll say it again: Google pays 5-year-old "influencers" millions of dollars. They have always harvested your data to provide these free services - selling ads was just icing. They still harvest your data and sell ads and they still make the same money they've always made - only now they are insisting that everyone watch ads or pay for it as well. And of course, eventually YouTube will insist that you watch ads and pay for it. This is the equivalent of "network decay" for streaming services. This is unreasonable and while there are exceptions to the rule, most people have the same reaction to what Google is doing here: surprise, and dismay, if not outright anger and disgust.
Yet every single thread about it on the Internet is utterly overflowing with people lecturing us about how we shouldn't expect something for nothing, as if we aren't fully aware that this is the most transparent of straw men. These people insist that we are the problem for daring to block ads - and further - that we should be thrilled to pay Google for this content, as they are. And they are! They just can't get enough of paying Google for YouTube! It's morally upright, it's the best experience available and money flows so freely for everyone these days, we should all be so lucky to be able to enjoy paying Google the way they do. And of course it's all so organic, these comments.
Suggest that Google pays people to engage this narrative, however, and you will be derided and downvoted into oblivion as if you were a tin-foil-hat wearing maniac. This comment itself is virtually guaranteed to be responded to with a patronizing sarcastic and 100% organic comment about how lol bruh everyone who disagrees with you must be a shill.
selling ads was just icing
You're talking about these as if they're separate things. Literally no company in existence harvests your data for any reason other than to serve better ads or to drive business decisions internally. Nobody gives a shit about your data otherwise. Ads are literally the only reason.
as if you were a tin-foil-hat wearing maniac
I mean... If the shoe fits, man.
Ok, I'll bite. Let's assume Youtube follows your advice, and stops showing ads on YouTube. Data collection is the only source of revenue. How does YouTube make money on that data? Be specific please. Who is buying the data, and what is the buyer going to do the data besides show you a targeted ad?
I've blocked maybe eight people in thirty minutes who are implicitly demanding that corporations create the law.
And one of them immediately down voted you. I wonder why they're here on Lemmy instead of continuing to support Reddit?
They clearly like to be bottoms to corpos.
This whole thread is a whole lot of hullabaloo about complaining about legality about the way YouTube is running ad block detection, and framing it as though it makes the entire concept of ad block detection illegal.
As much as you may hate YouTube and/or their ad block policies, this whole take is a dead end. Even if by the weird stretch he's making, the current system is illegal, there are plenty of ways for Google to detect and act on this without going anywhere remotely near that law. The best case scenario here is Google rewrites the way they're doing it and redeploys the same thing.
This might cost them like weeks of development time. But it doesn't stop Google from refusing to serve you video until you watch ads. This whole argument is receiving way more weight than it deserves because he's repeatedly flaunting credentials that don't change the reality of what Google could do here even if this argument held water.
Ah yeah the kind of hullabaloo that makes everyone accept cookies on every single website ;)
What they're doing is illegal. It has to stop immediately and they have to be held accountable
What they're doing is immoral and every barrier we can put up against it is a valid pursuit
Restricting Google to data held remotely is a good barrier. They shouldn't be able to help themselves to users local data, and it's something that most people can understand: the data that is physically within your system is yours alone. They would have to get permission from each user to transfer that data, which is right.
This legal route commits to personal permissions and is a step to maintaining user data within the country of origin. Far from being a "dead end", it's the foundation and beginnings of a sensible policy on data ownership. This far, no further.
How is it immoral? Is Google morally obligated to provide you with a way to use their service for free? Google wants YouTube to start making money, and I'd guess the alternative is no more YouTube.
Why is everyone so worked up about a huge company wanting to earn even more money, we know this is how it works, and we always knew this was coming. You tried to cheat the system and they've had enough.
I think it's a question of drawing a line between "commercial right" and "public good".
Mathematical theorems automatically come under public good (because apparently they count as discoveries, which is nonsense - they are constructions), but an artist's sketch comes under commercial right.
YouTube as a platform is so ubiquitously large, I suspect a lot of people consider it a public good rather than a commercial right. Given there is a large body of educational content, as well as some essential lifesaving content, there is an argument to be made for it. Indeed, even the creative content deserves a platform.
A company that harvests the data of billions, has sold that data without permission for decades, and evades tax like a champion certainly owes a debt of public good.
The actions of Google are not those of a company "seeking their due", for their due has long since been harvested by their monopolisation of searches, their walked garden appstore, and their use of our data to train their paid AI product.
A public good? Like roads, firefighters, etc? You want the government to pay for your Youtube Premium subscription?
Less snarky, if you're arguing that Youtube has earned a special legal status, a natural consequence is that Google gets to play by a different rulebook from all other competitors. That's quite a dangerous direction to take.
Your snark was actually closer to the mark than you think.
Let's say YouTube vanished overnight, what would the impact be? Sarcasm might suggest "we'd all be more productive" but let's take a deeper look.
A lot of free courses (or parts thereof) would vanish. (A key resource for poorer learners)
Most modern tech repair guides would be gone (no machine breakdowns, no guides on fixing errors on old hardware)
A lot of people's voices would be silenced (YouTube is an awful platform, but for some people it's one of the only ones they have)
Seems to me, it would do a lot of public harm. Probably more harm than removing a freeway or closing a fire station.
As for letting Google "play by a different rulebook", it does so already. The OP has indicated that they're undertaking an action in an illegal way, and yet no-one much cares to stop them. Yes, they could do the same thing via legal channels, but that's rather like suggesting there is no difference between threats of violence vs taking someone to court when trying to collect money.
Would you grant an insurance company similar legal indemnity? How would you feel about your local barber peeking in your window and selling what they see? Google has long played by a different rulebook, and thus different expectations are held.
Honestly if I were a politician I would support legislation restricting permanent bans from major websites from being given out willy-nilly because too many of them are ubiquitous enough to qualify as a public good.
Err, going through threads of conversations on both reddit and lemmy regarding YouTube, one would assume ad free access is the norm and Google even daring to offer Youtube Premium is a bad thing.
I feel offering Youtube Premium while still tracking the users online movement is indeed a bad thing.
I get what you are saying, but you could argue that google is pretty much a monopoly at this point, using their power trying to extract money from customers they could never do if their was any real competition with a similar number of channels and customers.
I think most users see google/youtube as a "the internet", or a utility as important as power, water and heat. And don't forget that google already requires users to "pay" for their services with data and ads in other services (maps, search, mail) as well.
How is it immoral? Is Google morally obligated to provide you with a way to use their service for free? Google wants YouTube to start making money, and I’d guess the alternative is no more YouTube.
Nope, but it is legally required to ask for permission to look into my device for data that it does not need to provide the serice.
Of course Google could make money, it just need to make them without violating the laws.
the data that is physically within your system is yours alone.
Actually, ALL the data Google has on you is yours. Google do not own the data, neither do reddit, Facebook or anyone else. They merely have a licence.
Personally I think even that is illegal. Contracts require consideration, you exchange x for y, then you have details in the terms and conditions. This is like "come in for free!" and then everything is in the terms and conditions. If you look at insurance, they're required to have a key facts page to bring to the front the main points from the terms in plain English. The cookie splash screen doesn't really do this, as it obfuscates just how much data they collect, and is for the most part unenforceable as you can't see what data they hold. Furthermore, the data they collect isn't proportional to your use of the website.
The whole thing flies in the face of the core principles of contract law under which all trading is done. They tell us our data has no value and it isn't worth the hassle of us getting paid, yet they use that data to become some of the wealthiest businesses in the world. We might not know how to make use of that data, and you'll need a lot of other data to build something to sell, but a manufacturer of nuts and bolts doesn't know how to build a car - yet they still get paid for a portion of the value derived from their product through others' work, as most of the value comes from what you can do with it. We're all being robbed, every single one of us, including politicians and lawmakers.
This whole thread is a whole lot of hullabaloo about complaining about legality about the way YouTube is running ad block detection, and framing it as though it makes the entire concept of ad block detection illegal.
Nope, the point is that, at the moment, Google seems to look where it should not look to know if a user has an adblocker and they don't ask for permission.
Let put it in another way: Google need to have my permission to look into my device.
But it doesn’t stop Google from refusing to serve you video until you watch ads.
Which is fine as long as Google can decide that I am using an adblocker without violating any law, which is pretty hard.
Of course Google could decide that it is better to leave EU and it law that protect the users, but is it a smart move from a company point of view ?
All they need to implement ad block detection is user consent, which they likely cover on their terms of service and privacy policy.
Because of GDPR, in the EU user consent has to be explicitly asked for and given, not implicitly via some catch all in a 20 pages Terms Of Service.
Hence all the cookie pop-ups.
That is addressed in the source I linked, which is an industry groups advice to publishers on the implementation of ad block detector. They specifically say that having it listed in your ToS is a defensible strategy but could have some risk. To mitigate the risk, you can introduce either a consent banner, consent wall, or both.
It's an interesting read, and something I wish I'd had a few years ago in a prior role when I wrote my organizations gdpr strategy, though I'm not an expert on EU specific law.
"Defensible strategy" doesn't mean much until it goes to court and gets tested - just look at all those Cookie Popups in the early days with "user must uncheck everything to Reject" anti-patterns which ended up being ruled as not valid per the GDPR which is why nowadays all the major websites have "Reject All" buttons in those.
So far on everything that had not yet been explicitly clarified, when it did the ball has consistently fallen on the side of explicit user consent on colleting any "user identifying" data beyond that which is technically required for operation and Ad Blocking is not a tecnical requirement for the operation of a video sharing website.
Indeed, it ultimatelly will need to be tested in court. My point is that relying on an expectation that a court will rule that the collection of user private information for remote processing related to a functionality which is not technically required without explicit user consent is ok if there's some entry somewhere in the ToS, is quite the wild bet as that would be a massive loophole on the GDPR, and further, even if that that did happen, relying on Commission not rush to close such a massive loophole is also a wild bet.
The guy really exudes “don’t you know who I am?” energy. Which is a shame since it detracts from the discussion.
It’s not even clear to me that the mechanism they’re using today is problematic. I don’t know what it is, but the author seems to think they do but aren’t sharing details beyond “trust me bro”. I agree that some kind of inspection-based detection might run afoul of the law, but I don’t see why that’s necessary. All you need to know is that the client is requesting videos without any of the ad requests making it through, which is entirely server-side.
Ha ha no. Google needs you more than you need google.
> but but but the ads moneh
If google made so much money from ads, they wouldn't care if you watched it at all. They want your consumerist data and they can't get it with adblock.
> but but but muh creators
Most major creators have complained about google shafting them with schizo rules about monetization. The biggers ones have started to sell merch and use other platforms as insurance. You watching those ads gives google more benefits than the creators.
Youtube is NOT essential. You can live without youtube. Simply follow the creators you like on other platforms. If you're a creator, time to diversify your platform. The iceberg is sighted and it's time to jump ship.
Google DOES make money from ads. A metric tuckton of it. Why the fuck else would they need your data other than to serve better ads???
I feel like they're eventually just going to embed the adverts directly into the video streams. No more automated blocking, even downloading will make you see ads. Sure, you can fast forward the video a bit, but it will be annoying enough that you'll see and hear a few seconds of ads each time, and you won't be able to just leave it running while you do other things.
the reason they are not doing it is because the ads are personalized. So if they want to bake an ad onto a video they will end up with countless videos each on with their own unique ads which is not viable logistically. So they can only do it on-the-fly. But re-encoding each video on-the-fly for each user is also a nightmare logistically, if not impossible at all.
I don't think you'd need to re-encode the whole thing on the fly. More frigging the container data around, than the video/audio codec itself.
That way I could request some_pointless_video.mp4 and it sends me 95% the same thing as is already on their server, with adverts jammed into it at defined intervals.
They probably think they can win for now by messing with individual ad-blockers, but with 3rd party players becoming more popular, I can see that being a catch-all solution.
isn't this more or less what they're doing now? The difference is that the ads are coming from different server and have an overlay on top with a timer and a skip. As long as the ads are coming from a different server they will be detectable. Also as long as the ads have overlays they are also detectable. They would need to make the ads be served from the same server that serves the video and eliminate the overlays.
That's the difference. The ads are coming from somewhere else and displayed in a different way.
By injecting it into the stream, there's no way to detect that. To your player it would all look like it's coming from the same place. Instead of a ten minute video and a couple of 20 second ads, it's now just 11 minutes of video.
Don't they have standardized resolutions and the file broken into hundreds/thousands of parts anyways? Couldn't they just add in ads to some of those parts in those same resolutions?
Similar to Apple's HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) solution, MPEG-DASH works by breaking the content into a sequence of small segments, which are served over HTTP.
isn't this more or less what they're doing now? The difference is that the ads are coming from different server and have an overlay on top with a timer and a skip. As long as the ads are coming from a different server they will be detectable. Also as long as the ads have overlays they are also detectable. They would need to make the ads be served from the same server that serves the video and eliminate the overlays.
We could build a public database (like SponsorBlock) of known ad video slices and detect them that way.
There will always be a way to detect and block ads.
I'm not worried.
That's why Google is pushing hard their Web Environment Integrity. It's DRM for the browser! They want the TPM chip in your computer to attest that the code running processing the video stream is authentic. Then you can't slice out the ads because you do not have physical access to the inside of TPM. With HDCP encryption on the HDMI video output, you gonna need to point a literal video camera at the physical screen to DVR the video and slice out the ads later.
They've been working hard for decades to lock down the video pipeline with TPM and HDCP and now WEI. They said "don't worry about it" and we let them. They are really close to snapping the trap shut!
Now please excuse me, my tongue is falling off with all the acronyms...
Won't cost them anything near weeks of dev time. They can just write it into their terms of service and prompt you to re-accept those next time you access the site.
Afaik you can't bypass laws and regulations with ToS
Definetly not if you are not registered. And likely if you are not logged in. This is EU, not US.
Everyday I think the European Union for preventing the internet from being worse than it could be. It's sad that back when the internet was a cesspool was so far the best age for it. Normies really do ruin everything
The same EU that threaten E2EE?
The EU has its faults, too, like this BS about sacrificing encryption. Overall, there seem to be a lot of benefits reigning in big companies, though.
Who else is looking out for their citizens? I think some congresspeople in the US ask tough questions, but in the end, business just goes on as usual.
Yes, the same EU. The fact that it's considering some poor choices doesn't detract from the fact that it's actions thus far have been positive and deserve appreciation. Real Life doesn't split people neatly into heroes and villains.
Don't be an asshole and blame regular people for shit like this. This is because of big tech
Actually I will, because big Tech used to be on the level because they knew they would be called out for fuckery. Then Facebook brought the Baby Boomers online and it was the Eternal September on steroids.
Those are still actions made by the tech companies. Blaming people for not complaining enough is not the best take on this. Just shifts the blame to the public, not to the people who made those decisions in the first place
This is the same chicken / egg thing as plastic pollutions.
Sure consumers choice of whether to discard or recycle a plastic straw is nothing compared to the decisions of corporations, but then consumers invest in those companies, buy their products, and elect representatives who do not hold them accountable.
Big tech has ruined the internet because people were willing to trade their privacy and their attention in order to watch gifs of cats playing the piano. I'm not "blaming" people for that - hell, I was one of them, but you can't solve the problem without understanding how it's perpetuated.
Strictly speaking, management at Big Tech are all normies and they make the decisions.
I think the point is solid: non-tech-people sell capabilities to other non-tech-people to make money, and this forms a feedback loop and drives direction. A non-big-tech world is wildly different because it's more like tech people building an environment for doing things with other tech people.
Management of big tech are excessively rich assholes. The rich, by the very definition, do not fall into the category of "normal people"
It's not the sheep's fault they're led to the meat grinder
If a private company has to succeed, it has to offer things ** that normies want.** FB/G is shit because this is what normies consume - the ego-display, the dopamine kick. In every enshittification of a service, there is a history of it being cravingly indulged by the mass. Now when the companies started rising up and used their monopoly, they (the normies) are realizing they have been shit-eating for a long time. One may argue the companies were not so in the beginning, but that would be a very myopic view.
Normally it wouldn't be, but these sheep were told "Do not go to this farm or you will be cooked." and responded with "Pffft, that'll happen to the other guy.." or "Pfft you're just whining because you expect everything just handed to you"
Every tech article I read nowadays I feel like has the appendix, "which is illegal in the EU." Lol
The only thing still preventing mayhem along with California
Seriously. Everything causes cancer which has the unfortunate effect of dulling the fear response but it is good to know. If you want to sell your product in California, which is where silicon valley is, you need to observe their safety standards.
And thank the EU we might actually get right to repair.
Elon can block EU for Twitter if he wants to but it's probably going to cost him even more.
Fuck yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. California is the only reason we don't have products giving insta-cancer ect.
Cool, so YouTube will start putting pop ups that require you to consent to the detection in order to watch videos. That's what everyone did with the whole cookies thing when that was determined to be illegal without consent.
that would be illegal too, because that information is not strictly necessary for their service - they could only opt to not provide the service in the eu
I don’t agree. They can reasonably argue that advertising is a requirement of their business model, so it is necessary to advertise. Therefore it is necessary for them to block access to those blocking advertising. The directive cited isn’t intended to make advertiser supported services effectively illegal in the EU. That would be a massive own goal. It’s intended to make deceptive and unnecessary data collection illegal. Nothing YouTube is doing is deceptive. They’re being very clear about their intention to advertise to non-subscribers.
They can reasonably argue that advertising is a requirement of their business model,
Couldn't that claim be countered by pointing out that they already deploy a for pay approach called youtube premium?
No, because businesses have multiple revenue streams. YouTube has a subscription offering, and a free, advertiser-supported offering. Both are part of their business model.
alright
There are multiple French websites that do this. It is legal (otherwise these websites would not do this anymore, it's been a while).
There is a popup asking you if you consent to get cookies (for advertisement). If you say "no", it leads you to another popup with two choices :
Change your decision and accept cookies
Pay for a premium service without advertisements
That is just because the people who enforce the EDPB guidelines just haven't come around to fining those websites.
That practice is still illegal.
Want to speed up the process? You can report those websites. The more reports the faster those get punished.
No, that's not that clear for the moment.
Let me explain the French case :
Webedia is a big company that owns most of the famous French websites (jeuxvideo.com , etc.). All these websites have cookie walls with an alternative : a paid subsription. What they say, is that the website is now accessible with subscription only. However, if you accept cookies, you'll get a discount (free access).
The CNIL (a big French governemental entity) tried to forbid this. If someone reports a website, it's for this entity to take action. There is no need to report Webedia, the CNIL knows already :-)
The Conseil d'Etat (juridical entity of the French gov) said that "non", it's OK for Webedia to use such paywalls. The CNIL can't forbid Webedia to use them.
The CNIL asked the jusrists at the European level... here we are. We still don't know.
Same in Germany and Switzerland. I just close the site immediately when I see this kind of blackmailing. Or use 12ft.io if I absolutely want to read the article.
Nothing more fun than having to go through some websites shitty settings to toggle everything off.
I can heartily recommend Consent-O-Matic. I'd say that it's able to clear (and reject by default) the cookie warnings on 95% of the sites I visit.
ublock does it too if you enable the "block annoyances" option in the settings
I don't know why I have not yet donated to these developers. They sure as hell deserve it. As soon as I get home they're gonna get some moneys!
sadly they're not accepting donations
I bet the list maintainers accept tips!
At the bottom of the uBlock Origin homepage there's links to the most popular list homepages which would be a good starting point.
The Peter Lowe’s ad tracking list links to its own Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/blocklist (Confirm by clicking on the link at the uBlock Origin homepage, then at the top click on patreon).
The other ones I couldn't find any obvious way to donate to the list maintainers.
A lot of the cookie notifications can't collect data until you accept them (or follow their annoying "opt-out" workflow). If you install UBlock Origin and go to its settings > 'Filter lists' and enable the "EasyList - Cookie Notices" you can block a lot of cookies. If they can never nag you and you never opt in, assuming they're following the law, you shouldn't be tracked.
I only just posted a meme about the EU flooring companies for going against their regulations. It was my first post too :)
I'd really like to add YouTube to it. Godspeed.
The only government actually doing shit. *Also, California
unless it is strictly necessary for the provisions of the requested service.
YouTube could quite easily argue that ads fund their service and therefore an adblock detector would be necessary.
that's not how it is to be interpreted.
it means something like in order for google maps to show you your position they NEED to access your device's gps service, otherwise maps by design can not display your position.
Correct. Youtube can still play videos on your screen on a technical level without the need for adblocker detection. Their financial situation is not relevant in that respect.
Correct. Youtube can still play videos on your screen on a technical level without the need for adblocker detection. Their financial situation is not relevant in that respect.
This is why I've never had an issue blocking ads. Pick a couple creators you like, join their patreon or buy some merch. You owe YT nothing.
Adblock detection has literally already been ruled on though (it needs consent). I'm sure there are nuances above my understanding, but it's not that simple.
Also required should be YouTube accepting liability for damage done by malicious ads or hacks injecting malware onto user systems via ad infrastructure.
Their precedent is that they sold our data for 20 years before this and are now the biggest company in the world, so they can go pound sand.
In the interest of making criticisms factually correct, they don't "sell" user data, they make money through targeted advertising using user data. They actually benefit by being the only ones with your data, it's not in their interest to sell it.
That's a very good point. I'm not very aware of EU regulations, I wonder if there has been established precedent in court
Don't ask how, but my dad found out that at least with Ublock, cleaning the cache in the addon makes it bypass the stupid pop-up.
Because they updated their filters so you have to clear the old cached filters
Going to give a heads up that sometimes ublock origin can fall behind because google supposedly updates their anti-adblock BS twice a day. But all you need to do is be patient, give it some time and eventually UBO gets updated. Then you can clear cache and update your filters to block YT's BS.
you can compare the version numbers and if they're off, ubo will eventually update it.
As an English person I thought yay that means us. Then I remembered. . .
The EU ruling was in 2016, well before Brexit happened in 2019, so we should have the same law.
Except that EU court rulings don't count in countries that stupidly left, no matter when they happened.
You could pass a similar law yourself, but that's probably not going to happen with either the abysmal Tories or the feckless centrist party Keir "I want to be Tony Blair" Starmer has turned Labour into in charge 😮💨
Nearly all EU rulings up until the UK left in 2019 are a part of British law. If the ruling was before the Brexit referendum then it would definitely count. Specifically with GDPR, the government confirmed that they adopted the EU's law.
Furthermore, this isn't a court ruling, it was a written reply from the European Commission, ie the people that wrote the law.
I guess I sit corrected and pleasantly surprised then 🙂
It's nothing to do with GDPR acording to the link of the post (people should read more than headlines..)
It seems like it worked, the same guy published an update asking people to stop filing the same complaint again and again. The agency is looking into it.
Thanks for highlighting this, I might have missed it otherwise.
I'm happy to report that the vote was postponed because they did not have the votes for the proposal to pass. I know it is not a definitive victory because they will simply try to do it again, but it's good that they failed once again.
Good to know, actually
You linked a webpage as an embedded image. If you meant to make a link, use:
Apart from the Orwellian scale and invasiveness of the whole thing, I also find the automatic inclusion of cops extremely troubling.
In most if not all countries, you don't have to have done anything wrong in order for any interaction with cops to potentially harmful up to and including the risk of being murdered by them. And they're just gonna automatically call them on every false positive of a likely extremely flawed algorithm 😬🤬
So is this basically saying youtube isn't allowed to detect an adblocker?
I'm not sure I really follow why that specifically is something they're policing.
It about device detection and privacy. Websites in the EU aren't allowed to scan your hardware or software without your permission, to protect the users privacy. Adblockers fall under this.
If thats how it works, they could very easily just check if the ad ever got loaded and refuse to serve you content until it does. Going after the way they prevent people from abusing their services doesn't stop them from preventing them - it just gives them a new hurdle and that's not a very big one.
Well many adblockers can be clever enough to load the asset, but then just drop it. As in yeah the ad image got downloaded to browser, but then the page content got edited to drop the display of the add or turn it to not shown asset in css.
This is age old battle. Site owners go you must do X or no media. However then ad blocker just goes "sure we do that, but then we just ghost the ad to the user".
Some script needs to be loaded, that would display the ad? All the parts of the script get executed and.... then CSS intervention just ghosts the ad that should be playing and so on.
Since the browser and extension are in ultimate control. As said the actual add video might be technically "playing" in the background going through motions, but it's a no show, no audio player.... ergo in practice the ad was blocked, while technically completely executed.
Hence why they want to scan for the software, since only way they can be sure ad will be shown is by verifying a known adhering to showing the ad software stack.
Well EU says that is not allowed, because privacy. Ergo the adblocker prevention is playing a losing battle. Whatever they do on the "make sure ad is shown" side, adblocker maker will just implement counter move.
So then Google just refuses to play the video until the appropriate time expires. Or they embed it in the video feed itself. There are more ways around this than you're making there out to be.
Your comment makes me think of Googles new DRM protocol, and then about Ken Thompsons compiler hack, combined with most DRM get hacked eventually.
This gives me hope that even if Googles DRM becomes standard, it will be hacked and YouTube thinks it's showing ads on a unmodified signed page, but I am not seeing any ads.
Twitch seems to have figured out adblock blocking. Any idea what they're doing that's different?
From my understanding, they embed the ad in the video stream itself so that it's indistinguishable from the actual content. I imagine Google could serve ads from the same servers that serve videos and integrate them in a way that would be hard to detect, just like Twitch.
I guess the one difference is that I don't think twitch ads are skippable while youtube's ads are. I assume embedding the ad into the video would prohibit that. Hopefully youtube doesn't do that because while the current ad situation is annoying, having only unskippable ads would be pretty unbearable.
Well, YouTube is no stranger to worsening their platform so it really wouldn't surprise me if they slowly transitioned to unskipable ads
There are ways to get Twitch adblock as well. I use PurpleTV
As I understand it, detecting an adblocker is a form of fingerprinting. Fingerprinting like this is a privacy violation unless there is first a consent process.
The outcome of this will be that consent for the detecting will be added to the TOS or as a modal and failing to consent will give up access to the service. It won't change Youtube's behavior, I don't think. But it could result in users being able to opt out of the anti-adblock... just that it also might be opting out of all of YouTube when they do it.
I'm all for this protection but for the sake of argument isn't use of the service consent to begin with? Or is that the American argument around these types of regulation?
I'm a pihole, vpn, adblock and invidious user ftr.. 😂
That's how the corporate-written laws in the USA handle it most likely. The EU actually has some amount of consumer protection. Burying it in a 100 page terms of service document doesn't count as consent either.
It depends on the context, but generally you require explicit permission for data-related stuff which means something like a checkbox or a signature.
So many corporate bootlickers here, damn.
It's like they think the only way to make money is to drown us in ads based off the telemetry they scoop up and we're entitled brats for wanting to have a say in how our data is harvested/used against us.
That's their business model. Drowning us in ads is literally how they make money. They aren't a tech company. They're an ad aggregation company. They collect data via having users use freemium services. They use that data to create anonymized profiles of millions or billions of people. They break those profiles down into subsets. And then they let ad companies buy the ability for Google to target those users with ads based on things they're likely to buy based on the data that Google has collected. It's a much more effective way of marketing ads than just playing ad spots on tv or on radio. Better than billboards and magazine spreads etc. That's literally what Google (and Apple, and Amazon even) do. It's what Facebook does. It's what most social media does. Their tech? Just a way to get you to buy into an ecosystem so you continue to feed the profile and the algorithm and see the ads.
But man if we don't pay for youtube premium how will they survive?
I'll say it again: Google pays 5-year-old "influencers" millions of dollars. They have always harvested your data to provide these free services - selling ads was just icing. They still harvest your data and sell ads and they still make the same money they've always made - only now they are insisting that everyone watch ads or pay for it as well. And of course, eventually YouTube will insist that you watch ads and pay for it. This is the equivalent of "network decay" for streaming services. This is unreasonable and while there are exceptions to the rule, most people have the same reaction to what Google is doing here: surprise, and dismay, if not outright anger and disgust.
Yet every single thread about it on the Internet is utterly overflowing with people lecturing us about how we shouldn't expect something for nothing, as if we aren't fully aware that this is the most transparent of straw men. These people insist that we are the problem for daring to block ads - and further - that we should be thrilled to pay Google for this content, as they are. And they are! They just can't get enough of paying Google for YouTube! It's morally upright, it's the best experience available and money flows so freely for everyone these days, we should all be so lucky to be able to enjoy paying Google the way they do. And of course it's all so organic, these comments.
Suggest that Google pays people to engage this narrative, however, and you will be derided and downvoted into oblivion as if you were a tin-foil-hat wearing maniac. This comment itself is virtually guaranteed to be responded to with a patronizing sarcastic and 100% organic comment about how lol bruh everyone who disagrees with you must be a shill.
You're talking about these as if they're separate things. Literally no company in existence harvests your data for any reason other than to serve better ads or to drive business decisions internally. Nobody gives a shit about your data otherwise. Ads are literally the only reason.
I mean... If the shoe fits, man.
Ok, I'll bite. Let's assume Youtube follows your advice, and stops showing ads on YouTube. Data collection is the only source of revenue. How does YouTube make money on that data? Be specific please. Who is buying the data, and what is the buyer going to do the data besides show you a targeted ad?
I've blocked maybe eight people in thirty minutes who are implicitly demanding that corporations create the law.
And one of them immediately down voted you. I wonder why they're here on Lemmy instead of continuing to support Reddit? They clearly like to be bottoms to corpos.
This whole thread is a whole lot of hullabaloo about complaining about legality about the way YouTube is running ad block detection, and framing it as though it makes the entire concept of ad block detection illegal.
As much as you may hate YouTube and/or their ad block policies, this whole take is a dead end. Even if by the weird stretch he's making, the current system is illegal, there are plenty of ways for Google to detect and act on this without going anywhere remotely near that law. The best case scenario here is Google rewrites the way they're doing it and redeploys the same thing.
This might cost them like weeks of development time. But it doesn't stop Google from refusing to serve you video until you watch ads. This whole argument is receiving way more weight than it deserves because he's repeatedly flaunting credentials that don't change the reality of what Google could do here even if this argument held water.
Ah yeah the kind of hullabaloo that makes everyone accept cookies on every single website ;)
shoutout to Consent-O-Matic! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/consent-o-matic/
Yay for ublocks annoyance pop up blocker. No more cookie pop ups
You're missing the point/s
How is it immoral? Is Google morally obligated to provide you with a way to use their service for free? Google wants YouTube to start making money, and I'd guess the alternative is no more YouTube.
Why is everyone so worked up about a huge company wanting to earn even more money, we know this is how it works, and we always knew this was coming. You tried to cheat the system and they've had enough.
I think it's a question of drawing a line between "commercial right" and "public good".
Mathematical theorems automatically come under public good (because apparently they count as discoveries, which is nonsense - they are constructions), but an artist's sketch comes under commercial right.
YouTube as a platform is so ubiquitously large, I suspect a lot of people consider it a public good rather than a commercial right. Given there is a large body of educational content, as well as some essential lifesaving content, there is an argument to be made for it. Indeed, even the creative content deserves a platform.
A company that harvests the data of billions, has sold that data without permission for decades, and evades tax like a champion certainly owes a debt of public good.
The actions of Google are not those of a company "seeking their due", for their due has long since been harvested by their monopolisation of searches, their walked garden appstore, and their use of our data to train their paid AI product.
A public good? Like roads, firefighters, etc? You want the government to pay for your Youtube Premium subscription?
Less snarky, if you're arguing that Youtube has earned a special legal status, a natural consequence is that Google gets to play by a different rulebook from all other competitors. That's quite a dangerous direction to take.
Your snark was actually closer to the mark than you think.
Let's say YouTube vanished overnight, what would the impact be? Sarcasm might suggest "we'd all be more productive" but let's take a deeper look.
A lot of free courses (or parts thereof) would vanish. (A key resource for poorer learners)
Most modern tech repair guides would be gone (no machine breakdowns, no guides on fixing errors on old hardware)
A lot of people's voices would be silenced (YouTube is an awful platform, but for some people it's one of the only ones they have)
Seems to me, it would do a lot of public harm. Probably more harm than removing a freeway or closing a fire station.
As for letting Google "play by a different rulebook", it does so already. The OP has indicated that they're undertaking an action in an illegal way, and yet no-one much cares to stop them. Yes, they could do the same thing via legal channels, but that's rather like suggesting there is no difference between threats of violence vs taking someone to court when trying to collect money.
Would you grant an insurance company similar legal indemnity? How would you feel about your local barber peeking in your window and selling what they see? Google has long played by a different rulebook, and thus different expectations are held.
Honestly if I were a politician I would support legislation restricting permanent bans from major websites from being given out willy-nilly because too many of them are ubiquitous enough to qualify as a public good.
Err, going through threads of conversations on both reddit and lemmy regarding YouTube, one would assume ad free access is the norm and Google even daring to offer Youtube Premium is a bad thing.
I feel offering Youtube Premium while still tracking the users online movement is indeed a bad thing.
I get what you are saying, but you could argue that google is pretty much a monopoly at this point, using their power trying to extract money from customers they could never do if their was any real competition with a similar number of channels and customers.
I think most users see google/youtube as a "the internet", or a utility as important as power, water and heat. And don't forget that google already requires users to "pay" for their services with data and ads in other services (maps, search, mail) as well.
Nope, but it is legally required to ask for permission to look into my device for data that it does not need to provide the serice.
Of course Google could make money, it just need to make them without violating the laws.
Actually, ALL the data Google has on you is yours. Google do not own the data, neither do reddit, Facebook or anyone else. They merely have a licence.
Personally I think even that is illegal. Contracts require consideration, you exchange x for y, then you have details in the terms and conditions. This is like "come in for free!" and then everything is in the terms and conditions. If you look at insurance, they're required to have a key facts page to bring to the front the main points from the terms in plain English. The cookie splash screen doesn't really do this, as it obfuscates just how much data they collect, and is for the most part unenforceable as you can't see what data they hold. Furthermore, the data they collect isn't proportional to your use of the website.
The whole thing flies in the face of the core principles of contract law under which all trading is done. They tell us our data has no value and it isn't worth the hassle of us getting paid, yet they use that data to become some of the wealthiest businesses in the world. We might not know how to make use of that data, and you'll need a lot of other data to build something to sell, but a manufacturer of nuts and bolts doesn't know how to build a car - yet they still get paid for a portion of the value derived from their product through others' work, as most of the value comes from what you can do with it. We're all being robbed, every single one of us, including politicians and lawmakers.
Very good point.
Nope, the point is that, at the moment, Google seems to look where it should not look to know if a user has an adblocker and they don't ask for permission.
Let put it in another way: Google need to have my permission to look into my device.
Which is fine as long as Google can decide that I am using an adblocker without violating any law, which is pretty hard.
Of course Google could decide that it is better to leave EU and it law that protect the users, but is it a smart move from a company point of view ?
All they need to implement ad block detection is user consent, which they likely cover on their terms of service and privacy policy.
Source
Because of GDPR, in the EU user consent has to be explicitly asked for and given, not implicitly via some catch all in a 20 pages Terms Of Service.
Hence all the cookie pop-ups.
That is addressed in the source I linked, which is an industry groups advice to publishers on the implementation of ad block detector. They specifically say that having it listed in your ToS is a defensible strategy but could have some risk. To mitigate the risk, you can introduce either a consent banner, consent wall, or both.
It's an interesting read, and something I wish I'd had a few years ago in a prior role when I wrote my organizations gdpr strategy, though I'm not an expert on EU specific law.
"Defensible strategy" doesn't mean much until it goes to court and gets tested - just look at all those Cookie Popups in the early days with "user must uncheck everything to Reject" anti-patterns which ended up being ruled as not valid per the GDPR which is why nowadays all the major websites have "Reject All" buttons in those.
So far on everything that had not yet been explicitly clarified, when it did the ball has consistently fallen on the side of explicit user consent on colleting any "user identifying" data beyond that which is technically required for operation and Ad Blocking is not a tecnical requirement for the operation of a video sharing website.
Indeed, it ultimatelly will need to be tested in court. My point is that relying on an expectation that a court will rule that the collection of user private information for remote processing related to a functionality which is not technically required without explicit user consent is ok if there's some entry somewhere in the ToS, is quite the wild bet as that would be a massive loophole on the GDPR, and further, even if that that did happen, relying on Commission not rush to close such a massive loophole is also a wild bet.
The guy really exudes “don’t you know who I am?” energy. Which is a shame since it detracts from the discussion.
It’s not even clear to me that the mechanism they’re using today is problematic. I don’t know what it is, but the author seems to think they do but aren’t sharing details beyond “trust me bro”. I agree that some kind of inspection-based detection might run afoul of the law, but I don’t see why that’s necessary. All you need to know is that the client is requesting videos without any of the ad requests making it through, which is entirely server-side.
Ha ha no. Google needs you more than you need google.
> but but but the ads moneh
If google made so much money from ads, they wouldn't care if you watched it at all. They want your consumerist data and they can't get it with adblock.
> but but but muh creators
Most major creators have complained about google shafting them with schizo rules about monetization. The biggers ones have started to sell merch and use other platforms as insurance. You watching those ads gives google more benefits than the creators.
Youtube is NOT essential. You can live without youtube. Simply follow the creators you like on other platforms. If you're a creator, time to diversify your platform. The iceberg is sighted and it's time to jump ship.
Google DOES make money from ads. A metric tuckton of it. Why the fuck else would they need your data other than to serve better ads???
I feel like they're eventually just going to embed the adverts directly into the video streams. No more automated blocking, even downloading will make you see ads. Sure, you can fast forward the video a bit, but it will be annoying enough that you'll see and hear a few seconds of ads each time, and you won't be able to just leave it running while you do other things.
the reason they are not doing it is because the ads are personalized. So if they want to bake an ad onto a video they will end up with countless videos each on with their own unique ads which is not viable logistically. So they can only do it on-the-fly. But re-encoding each video on-the-fly for each user is also a nightmare logistically, if not impossible at all.
I don't think you'd need to re-encode the whole thing on the fly. More frigging the container data around, than the video/audio codec itself.
That way I could request some_pointless_video.mp4 and it sends me 95% the same thing as is already on their server, with adverts jammed into it at defined intervals.
They probably think they can win for now by messing with individual ad-blockers, but with 3rd party players becoming more popular, I can see that being a catch-all solution.
isn't this more or less what they're doing now? The difference is that the ads are coming from different server and have an overlay on top with a timer and a skip. As long as the ads are coming from a different server they will be detectable. Also as long as the ads have overlays they are also detectable. They would need to make the ads be served from the same server that serves the video and eliminate the overlays.
That's the difference. The ads are coming from somewhere else and displayed in a different way.
By injecting it into the stream, there's no way to detect that. To your player it would all look like it's coming from the same place. Instead of a ten minute video and a couple of 20 second ads, it's now just 11 minutes of video.
Don't they have standardized resolutions and the file broken into hundreds/thousands of parts anyways? Couldn't they just add in ads to some of those parts in those same resolutions?
e.g: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Adaptive_Streaming_over_HTTP
isn't this more or less what they're doing now? The difference is that the ads are coming from different server and have an overlay on top with a timer and a skip. As long as the ads are coming from a different server they will be detectable. Also as long as the ads have overlays they are also detectable. They would need to make the ads be served from the same server that serves the video and eliminate the overlays.
We could build a public database (like SponsorBlock) of known ad video slices and detect them that way.
There will always be a way to detect and block ads.
I'm not worried.
That's why Google is pushing hard their Web Environment Integrity. It's DRM for the browser! They want the TPM chip in your computer to attest that the code running processing the video stream is authentic. Then you can't slice out the ads because you do not have physical access to the inside of TPM. With HDCP encryption on the HDMI video output, you gonna need to point a literal video camera at the physical screen to DVR the video and slice out the ads later.
They've been working hard for decades to lock down the video pipeline with TPM and HDCP and now WEI. They said "don't worry about it" and we let them. They are really close to snapping the trap shut!
Now please excuse me, my tongue is falling off with all the acronyms...
Have you met my friend SponsorBlock?
That only works by users crowdsourcing and flagging the advert sections.
By doing it on the fly, each user could get different ads in different places.
Won't cost them anything near weeks of dev time. They can just write it into their terms of service and prompt you to re-accept those next time you access the site.
Afaik you can't bypass laws and regulations with ToS
Definetly not if you are not registered. And likely if you are not logged in. This is EU, not US.
They could easily put a “consent” requirement to access
Everyday I think the European Union for preventing the internet from being worse than it could be. It's sad that back when the internet was a cesspool was so far the best age for it. Normies really do ruin everything
The same EU that threaten E2EE?
The EU has its faults, too, like this BS about sacrificing encryption. Overall, there seem to be a lot of benefits reigning in big companies, though.
Who else is looking out for their citizens? I think some congresspeople in the US ask tough questions, but in the end, business just goes on as usual.
Yes, the same EU. The fact that it's considering some poor choices doesn't detract from the fact that it's actions thus far have been positive and deserve appreciation. Real Life doesn't split people neatly into heroes and villains.
Don't be an asshole and blame regular people for shit like this. This is because of big tech
Actually I will, because big Tech used to be on the level because they knew they would be called out for fuckery. Then Facebook brought the Baby Boomers online and it was the Eternal September on steroids.
Those are still actions made by the tech companies. Blaming people for not complaining enough is not the best take on this. Just shifts the blame to the public, not to the people who made those decisions in the first place
This is the same chicken / egg thing as plastic pollutions.
Sure consumers choice of whether to discard or recycle a plastic straw is nothing compared to the decisions of corporations, but then consumers invest in those companies, buy their products, and elect representatives who do not hold them accountable.
Big tech has ruined the internet because people were willing to trade their privacy and their attention in order to watch gifs of cats playing the piano. I'm not "blaming" people for that - hell, I was one of them, but you can't solve the problem without understanding how it's perpetuated.
Strictly speaking, management at Big Tech are all normies and they make the decisions.
I think the point is solid: non-tech-people sell capabilities to other non-tech-people to make money, and this forms a feedback loop and drives direction. A non-big-tech world is wildly different because it's more like tech people building an environment for doing things with other tech people.
Management of big tech are excessively rich assholes. The rich, by the very definition, do not fall into the category of "normal people"
The normies support big tech, they love it. They probably work for big tech, or wish they did, or at least imagine themselves as the next Elon Musk.
The "normies" don't even know what these things are. It's just the big blue "f" on their phone, or the colourful camera icon.
Half this shit is installed by default on pretty much any phone you can buy.
It's not the sheep's fault they're led to the meat grinder
If a private company has to succeed, it has to offer things ** that normies want.** FB/G is shit because this is what normies consume - the ego-display, the dopamine kick. In every enshittification of a service, there is a history of it being cravingly indulged by the mass. Now when the companies started rising up and used their monopoly, they (the normies) are realizing they have been shit-eating for a long time. One may argue the companies were not so in the beginning, but that would be a very myopic view.
Normally it wouldn't be, but these sheep were told "Do not go to this farm or you will be cooked." and responded with "Pffft, that'll happen to the other guy.." or "Pfft you're just whining because you expect everything just handed to you"
"Normies"? Seriously?
Because "normies" are responsible for the entshitification of the Internet right?
Every tech article I read nowadays I feel like has the appendix, "which is illegal in the EU." Lol
The only thing still preventing mayhem along with California
Seriously. Everything causes cancer which has the unfortunate effect of dulling the fear response but it is good to know. If you want to sell your product in California, which is where silicon valley is, you need to observe their safety standards.
And thank the EU we might actually get right to repair.
Elon can block EU for Twitter if he wants to but it's probably going to cost him even more.
Fuck yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. California is the only reason we don't have products giving insta-cancer ect.
Cool, so YouTube will start putting pop ups that require you to consent to the detection in order to watch videos. That's what everyone did with the whole cookies thing when that was determined to be illegal without consent.
that would be illegal too, because that information is not strictly necessary for their service - they could only opt to not provide the service in the eu
I don’t agree. They can reasonably argue that advertising is a requirement of their business model, so it is necessary to advertise. Therefore it is necessary for them to block access to those blocking advertising. The directive cited isn’t intended to make advertiser supported services effectively illegal in the EU. That would be a massive own goal. It’s intended to make deceptive and unnecessary data collection illegal. Nothing YouTube is doing is deceptive. They’re being very clear about their intention to advertise to non-subscribers.
Couldn't that claim be countered by pointing out that they already deploy a for pay approach called youtube premium?
No, because businesses have multiple revenue streams. YouTube has a subscription offering, and a free, advertiser-supported offering. Both are part of their business model.
alright
There are multiple French websites that do this. It is legal (otherwise these websites would not do this anymore, it's been a while).
There is a popup asking you if you consent to get cookies (for advertisement). If you say "no", it leads you to another popup with two choices :
That is just because the people who enforce the EDPB guidelines just haven't come around to fining those websites.
That practice is still illegal.
Want to speed up the process? You can report those websites. The more reports the faster those get punished.
No, that's not that clear for the moment.
Let me explain the French case :
Here is a French website where the CNIL explains this :
https://www.cnil.fr/fr/cookie-walls-la-cnil-publie-des-premiers-criteres-devaluation
Same in Germany and Switzerland. I just close the site immediately when I see this kind of blackmailing. Or use 12ft.io if I absolutely want to read the article.
Nothing more fun than having to go through some websites shitty settings to toggle everything off.
I can heartily recommend Consent-O-Matic. I'd say that it's able to clear (and reject by default) the cookie warnings on 95% of the sites I visit.
ublock does it too if you enable the "block annoyances" option in the settings
I don't know why I have not yet donated to these developers. They sure as hell deserve it. As soon as I get home they're gonna get some moneys!
sadly they're not accepting donations
I bet the list maintainers accept tips!
At the bottom of the uBlock Origin homepage there's links to the most popular list homepages which would be a good starting point.
The Peter Lowe’s ad tracking list links to its own Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/blocklist (Confirm by clicking on the link at the uBlock Origin homepage, then at the top click on patreon).
The other ones I couldn't find any obvious way to donate to the list maintainers.
Duckduckgo browser does it too
Still a curveball. Collecting your data and having to say ot to your face are not the same.
Would be a shame if your answer to that consent question was not saved and would be required to answer each time you open up a video.
which you could get around by using another frontend for youtube or just going with vlc all the way by playing the url in vlc directly.
Firefox's 'Play in VLC' https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/play-in-vlc/ is brilliant for this - it does entire playlists too. It works with smpalyer, which is even better player than VLC, IMO.
https://www.smplayer.info/
A lot of the cookie notifications can't collect data until you accept them (or follow their annoying "opt-out" workflow). If you install UBlock Origin and go to its settings > 'Filter lists' and enable the "EasyList - Cookie Notices" you can block a lot of cookies. If they can never nag you and you never opt in, assuming they're following the law, you shouldn't be tracked.
I only just posted a meme about the EU flooring companies for going against their regulations. It was my first post too :)
I'd really like to add YouTube to it. Godspeed.
The only government actually doing shit. *Also, California
YouTube could quite easily argue that ads fund their service and therefore an adblock detector would be necessary.
that's not how it is to be interpreted.
it means something like in order for google maps to show you your position they NEED to access your device's gps service, otherwise maps by design can not display your position.
Correct. Youtube can still play videos on your screen on a technical level without the need for adblocker detection. Their financial situation is not relevant in that respect.
This is why I've never had an issue blocking ads. Pick a couple creators you like, join their patreon or buy some merch. You owe YT nothing.
Just replying to confirm that "strictly necessary" has never meant, "makes us money." It means technically necessary.
Adblock detection has literally already been ruled on though (it needs consent). I'm sure there are nuances above my understanding, but it's not that simple.
Also required should be YouTube accepting liability for damage done by malicious ads or hacks injecting malware onto user systems via ad infrastructure.
Their precedent is that they sold our data for 20 years before this and are now the biggest company in the world, so they can go pound sand.
In the interest of making criticisms factually correct, they don't "sell" user data, they make money through targeted advertising using user data. They actually benefit by being the only ones with your data, it's not in their interest to sell it.
That's a very good point. I'm not very aware of EU regulations, I wonder if there has been established precedent in court
Thank fuck for EU and GDPR
"when has the EU ever done anything for us"
It's nothing to do with GDPR acording to the link of the post (people should read more than headlines..)
... We're gonna get another cookie click-through, aren't we?
Do you consent to our use of intrusive browser detection, anti-cheat, rootkit usage and invasive brain implants to bombard you with ads?
Yeah, pretty much
Google: You will accept our legitimate interest and you will like it.
Another three cheers for the EU! 🇪🇺🍻🥂
FUCK YEAHHHHHHHH. YOUTUBE IS FUCKED LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO
EU to the rescue again!
I am not paying for Premium again until they bring the dislike button back.
I am not paying for Premium.
It was pathetic for them to hide away this button with its statistics. Honestly it's an valuable tool.
Too many big companies got their feefees hurtied because we downthumbered their stupid announcements. Think of them for once 😭
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/return-youtube-dislikes/
UP RYD!
Don't ask how, but my dad found out that at least with Ublock, cleaning the cache in the addon makes it bypass the stupid pop-up.
Because they updated their filters so you have to clear the old cached filters
Going to give a heads up that sometimes ublock origin can fall behind because google supposedly updates their anti-adblock BS twice a day. But all you need to do is be patient, give it some time and eventually UBO gets updated. Then you can clear cache and update your filters to block YT's BS.
you can compare the version numbers and if they're off, ubo will eventually update it.
As an English person I thought yay that means us. Then I remembered. . .
The EU ruling was in 2016, well before Brexit happened in 2019, so we should have the same law.
Except that EU court rulings don't count in countries that stupidly left, no matter when they happened.
You could pass a similar law yourself, but that's probably not going to happen with either the abysmal Tories or the feckless centrist party Keir "I want to be Tony Blair" Starmer has turned Labour into in charge 😮💨
Nearly all EU rulings up until the UK left in 2019 are a part of British law. If the ruling was before the Brexit referendum then it would definitely count. Specifically with GDPR, the government confirmed that they adopted the EU's law.
Furthermore, this isn't a court ruling, it was a written reply from the European Commission, ie the people that wrote the law.
I guess I sit corrected and pleasantly surprised then 🙂
It's nothing to do with GDPR acording to the link of the post (people should read more than headlines..)
Not that the social media corps have ever given a shit.
Very much not true.
The app Threads from Meta had to be rewritten due to its extensive tracking in the US market. Not legal in the EU.
They give a shit when they start getting fined based on a % of their revenue
When it’s a percent of the revenue, it’s just the cost of doing business.
You should all go file a complaint with a data protection agency.
The thread in the linked social network suggests concentrating the complaints to the Irish DPC: https://forms.dataprotection.ie/contact
It seems like it worked, the same guy published an update asking people to stop filing the same complaint again and again. The agency is looking into it.
Thanks for highlighting this, I might have missed it otherwise.
And then we have Chat control V2…
I'm happy to report that the vote was postponed because they did not have the votes for the proposal to pass. I know it is not a definitive victory because they will simply try to do it again, but it's good that they failed once again.
Good to know, actually
You linked a webpage as an embedded image. If you meant to make a link, use:
Chat control V2
If you meant to embed:
Thanks
Apart from the Orwellian scale and invasiveness of the whole thing, I also find the automatic inclusion of cops extremely troubling.
In most if not all countries, you don't have to have done anything wrong in order for any interaction with cops to potentially harmful up to and including the risk of being murdered by them. And they're just gonna automatically call them on every false positive of a likely extremely flawed algorithm 😬🤬
So is this basically saying youtube isn't allowed to detect an adblocker?
I'm not sure I really follow why that specifically is something they're policing.
It about device detection and privacy. Websites in the EU aren't allowed to scan your hardware or software without your permission, to protect the users privacy. Adblockers fall under this.
If thats how it works, they could very easily just check if the ad ever got loaded and refuse to serve you content until it does. Going after the way they prevent people from abusing their services doesn't stop them from preventing them - it just gives them a new hurdle and that's not a very big one.
Well many adblockers can be clever enough to load the asset, but then just drop it. As in yeah the ad image got downloaded to browser, but then the page content got edited to drop the display of the add or turn it to not shown asset in css.
This is age old battle. Site owners go you must do X or no media. However then ad blocker just goes "sure we do that, but then we just ghost the ad to the user".
Some script needs to be loaded, that would display the ad? All the parts of the script get executed and.... then CSS intervention just ghosts the ad that should be playing and so on.
Since the browser and extension are in ultimate control. As said the actual add video might be technically "playing" in the background going through motions, but it's a no show, no audio player.... ergo in practice the ad was blocked, while technically completely executed.
Hence why they want to scan for the software, since only way they can be sure ad will be shown is by verifying a known adhering to showing the ad software stack.
Well EU says that is not allowed, because privacy. Ergo the adblocker prevention is playing a losing battle. Whatever they do on the "make sure ad is shown" side, adblocker maker will just implement counter move.
So then Google just refuses to play the video until the appropriate time expires. Or they embed it in the video feed itself. There are more ways around this than you're making there out to be.
Your comment makes me think of Googles new DRM protocol, and then about Ken Thompsons compiler hack, combined with most DRM get hacked eventually.
This gives me hope that even if Googles DRM becomes standard, it will be hacked and YouTube thinks it's showing ads on a unmodified signed page, but I am not seeing any ads.
Twitch seems to have figured out adblock blocking. Any idea what they're doing that's different?
From my understanding, they embed the ad in the video stream itself so that it's indistinguishable from the actual content. I imagine Google could serve ads from the same servers that serve videos and integrate them in a way that would be hard to detect, just like Twitch.
I guess the one difference is that I don't think twitch ads are skippable while youtube's ads are. I assume embedding the ad into the video would prohibit that. Hopefully youtube doesn't do that because while the current ad situation is annoying, having only unskippable ads would be pretty unbearable.
Well, YouTube is no stranger to worsening their platform so it really wouldn't surprise me if they slowly transitioned to unskipable ads
There are ways to get Twitch adblock as well. I use PurpleTV
Good, make them jump through that hoop and respect user privacy.
As I understand it, detecting an adblocker is a form of fingerprinting. Fingerprinting like this is a privacy violation unless there is first a consent process.
The outcome of this will be that consent for the detecting will be added to the TOS or as a modal and failing to consent will give up access to the service. It won't change Youtube's behavior, I don't think. But it could result in users being able to opt out of the anti-adblock... just that it also might be opting out of all of YouTube when they do it.
I'm all for this protection but for the sake of argument isn't use of the service consent to begin with? Or is that the American argument around these types of regulation?
I'm a pihole, vpn, adblock and invidious user ftr.. 😂
That's how the corporate-written laws in the USA handle it most likely. The EU actually has some amount of consumer protection. Burying it in a 100 page terms of service document doesn't count as consent either.
It depends on the context, but generally you require explicit permission for data-related stuff which means something like a checkbox or a signature.
How is YouTube detecting adblockers? Wouldn't it be with the information the user's browser is already passing to them?
It could check if the ad is present in Dom maybe?
Or they just check the machine to see if the malware served in the ad is present.
Using javascript ofc.It checks if ads successfully loaded and showed to user if not showing banner to u.