Newspaper industry asks FTC to investigate “deceptive” adblockers by John Zorabedian.
From the post:
Fearing that online publishers may be on the losing side of their battle with commercial adblockers, the newspaper publishing industry is now seeking relief from the US government.
The Newspaper Association of America (NAA), an industry group representing 2000 newspapers, filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking the consumer watchdog to investigate adblocker companies’ “deceptive” and “unlawful” practices.
The NAA is not alleging that adblockers themselves are illegal – rather, it says that adblocker companies make misleading claims about their products, a violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
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Do you feel safer knowing the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) is protecting you from deceptive ads by adblocker companies?
A better service would be to protect consumers from deceptive ads in their publications but I suppose that would be a conflict of interest.
The best result would be for the FTC to declare you can display (or not) content received on your computer any way you like.
You cannot, of course, re-transmit that content, but if a user chooses to combine your content with that of another site, that is entirely on their watch.
Ad-blocking, transformation of lawfully delivered content, including merging of content, are rights that every user should enjoy.