Today I filed a formal complaint against #YouTube with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner for their illegal deployment of #adblock detection technologies.
Under Article 5(3) of 2002/58/EC YouTube are legally obligated to obtain consent before storing or accessing information already stored on an end user's terminal equipment unless it is strictly necessary for the provisions of the requested service.
In 2016 the EU Commission confirmed in writing that adblock detection requires consent.
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.
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.
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.
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.