German publishers lose Adblock Plus lawsuit

German publishers have lost a lawsuit against Eyeo, the company behind the popular browser extension Adblock Plus. The two publishers demanded that Adblock Plus no longer block ads on their sites, but the judge did not agree.

The case was brought before the Hamburg District Court by Zeit Online and Handelsblatt. The publishers argued that by blocking the Adblock Plus, it was impermissible to interfere with their services, which are financed by advertisements.

The judge rejected the demand that Adblock Plus should stop doing this on the companies’ sites, including a reference to the possibility of using a paywall. The court also pointed out that Adblock Plus does not specifically target the complainants’ sites and that users can adjust the default settings.

The complaint from Zeit Online and Handelsblatt focused in particular on Adblock Plus’s acceptable ads initiative. Sites can be whitelisted, whether or not for a fee, if their advertisements meet requirements drawn up by Eyeo. According to Heise, the lawyer even spoke of extortion practices.

Eyeo stated that 90 percent of the whitelisted sites have not paid and the rest, including big names like Google and Microsoft, would bring in significantly more revenue from the whitelisting. Earlier this year, a smaller company told the Financial Times that it would donate 30 percent of its advertising revenue to be whitelisted.

The company behind Adblock Plus was delighted with the ruling and invites companies to collaborate. The company also sees an important precedent in the judgment. There are further cases from publishers against Eyeo in Germany, including in Cologne and Munich.