‘German police search Adblock Plus company Eyeo for copyright infringement’

The German police have searched properties of Adblock Plus developer Eyeo in Berlin and Cologne. The company is suspected of large-scale copyright infringement. According to Eyeo CEO Till Faida, the action is the result of a lawsuit by publisher Axel Springer.

The site Heise reports the searches and writes that they are another step in the conflict between the publisher and the company behind the adblocker. The crux of the matter is the distribution of filter rules by Eyeo, with which the blocking of adblockers by the Springer site Bild Online could be circumvented. The publisher informs Heise that he has filed two charges against Eyeo in the past year: for circumventing the block and because the company allegedly lied in court.

The conflict between the companies about circumventing the blockade has been going on for some time, as Axel Springer already obtained an interim injunction in 2015 against the spread of the filter rules. The Hamburg judge then equated the method for blocking ad blockers with the copy protection of DVDs, which may not be breached by law, according to Heise. The site estimates that Springer wants to achieve more with the action than just taking out Eyeo. By targeting the filter lists like EasyList, the publisher could potentially hit other ad blockers as well.

In Germany, media companies have been calling for a ban on adblockers for some time. In 2014, several companies, including Axel Springer, announced that they would take action.