Technology

Just because you send me malware after some text I wanted to read (in http response), don't give you rights to force me to execute the malware.

Just because I have your book (or page) and look at part of it doesn't give you the right to force me to read it in full or dictate how I'm reading it.

I have every right to reveal/read only part of the book/page. We didn't sign any agreement, if you want me to first look at the part you want to or agree to some license nothing stopping you to do, stuff like paywall or subscription exists...

You can take my ad blockers when you pry them from my cold, dead body.

Fucking fascists.

This has the same energy as shutting your eyes and blocking your ears during a commercial being piracy.

Well that's dystopian as fuck, ads are a legitimate security threat with the amount of malware, scams, and other shady stuff advertisements online frequent contain.

Edit: Not even a day later there's a report about Google ads straight up serving malware because of fucking course that happened...

Forcing my computer to display ads infringes on my actual property rights as owner of the machine.

It's beyond the pale that we're even contemplating letting Imaginary Property "rights" (read: temporary privileges) trump actual property rights, let alone actually doing it.

When the web pages are called up by the web browser, the HTML file is transferred to the RAM on the user’s device. To display the HTML file, the web browser interprets its content, creating additional data structures. The plaintiff sees the influence on these data structures by the ad blocker as an unauthorized modification of a computer program

This has to be the most idiotic thing I read this week.

One would think that this is very thin ice for a counter suit, in that how may advertising houses have looked at the source of adblockers to work around them?

I wonder when they will start going after screen reader companies for changing how the page looks like for their blind users.

Once again, copyright maximalists fail to understand the medium they profit from, and propose to destroy it.

The display of hypertext always involves the active participation of both clients and servers. It has never been dictated solely by document authors. A given hypertext document (e.g. a web page) may involve resources drawn from many servers, including ones not under the control of the document's author. In addition, client behavior may vary from that expected by the document's author; in matters as minor as the selection of font size, or as major as whether to display images or execute script code. This separation of control is a fundamental feature of the medium, and gives rise to many of the medium's strengths: for instance, the development of servers, clients, and documents may advance semi-independently, serving different interests.

Users may choose clients that they believe will better serve their needs. In many cases, users have chosen clients that take steps to mitigate the power of advertisers to control the medium: see e.g. the adoption of pop-up blocking (pioneered in Netscape plug-ins and minority browsers like iCab and Opera) and the later adoption of anti-malware technology such as Google Safe Browsing by Firefox and Opera as well as Google's own Chrome. These choices have strengthened the medium, making it more usable and thus more popular: imagine how unpleasant the web would be today without the pop-up blocking developed 20+ years ago.