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ARTICLE · 03 MAY 2018

AdBlockers Now Really More Legal Than Not?

SKW Schwarz
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A third higher regional court has ruled on the legality of website ad blockers, a further decision in one of several proceedings initiated against the distribution of "AdBlock Plus".

GermanyMedia, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment
Florian Hensel
Florian Hensel

A third higher regional court has ruled on the legality of website ad blockers, a further decision in one of several proceedings initiated against the distribution of "AdBlock Plus".

The Hamburg judges in essence shared the opinion of their Munich colleague, which had held in August 2017 that distributing a free ad blocking open source software, which suppresses ad displays on Internet sites does not infringe antitrust, unfair commercial practices and copyright laws. The Higher Regional Court in Cologne had ruled in 2016 that the associated business model of paid "white-listing" of sites in the software had been partly illegal. The Hamburg judges did not allow further appeal to the Federal Supreme Court as it would only involve applying standing principles to the specific case. The Munich court had allowed the further appeal in their decision, hence the story continues...

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