German court declares Adblock Plus legal again

RTL and Pro 7/Sat 1 have lost a lawsuit against the company behind Adblock Plus, Eyeo, in Germany. The Landgericht München stated that the company’s conduct is legal. The complainants invoked, among other things, a violation of competition law.

Eyeo’s Adblock Plus service does not illegally prevent the services of RTL and Pro 7/Sat 1 because, the Landgericht ruled, ‘users have made the autonomous and independent decision to install the ad blocker to prevent advertising from being shown’ .

According to the court, a claim of violation of competition law was also unsuccessful, since Eyeo does not have a dominant market position with Adblock Plus. Even if the use of Adblock continues to increase, RTL and Pro 7/Sat 1 can still reach enough people with advertisements, the judge argued according to Heise.

The judge also ruled that Eyeo’s Acceptable Ads initiative is legal. With this, the company puts advertisements that are acceptable according to Eyeo, on a white list. This is a source of income for the company: major parties like Google pay to be whitelisted. Eyeo is once again inviting publishers and advertisers to help with this initiative with non-intrusive ads.

A month ago, Eyeo also won a lawsuit regarding Adblock Plus. Then it was Zeit Online and Handelsblatt who sued the company.