Safe Harbor in Communications Decency Act apply 2 adblockin?

Everything about using Adblock Plus on Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey
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IceDogg
Posts: 909
Joined: Fri Jun 09, 2006 11:22 pm

Safe Harbor in Communications Decency Act apply 2 adblockin?

Post by IceDogg »

In this artcle it talks about the lawsuit Zango (formerly 180solutions) filed against Kaspersky where the judge tossed it out. This is the part I found interesting.
The basis for the court's ruling was the Communications Decency Act, which contains a "safe harbor" provision in Section 230. The law provides protection for "any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, and harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."
Could this not also apply to ads? If so then certain people's claims of "adblocking is stealing" just went out the window according to US LAW. Not that it ever was taken seriously, but that has it pretty cut and dry (black and white) doesn't it?

Edit: another part that applies I think.
Although the company tried to argue that it was not, in fact, offering objectionable material, the judge pointed out what the law says: namely, it is up to the user or the service provider to determine what is or is not objectionable. Zango's argument, noted the judge, "is based on a misreading of the statute."

In other words, if Kaspersky wants to block something, and the user wants to let Kaspersky do its business, Zango has no cause for complaint.
Alan
Posts: 289
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2007 8:47 pm
Location: Colorado, USA

Post by Alan »

Interesting reading, IceDogg. Thank you for posting it.
IceDogg
Posts: 909
Joined: Fri Jun 09, 2006 11:22 pm

Post by IceDogg »

No problem and thanks for the reply, I was starting to think no one was interested. I just thought this gives us good firm ground to stand on.
ultravioletu

You were not the only one interested

Post by ultravioletu »

I intended to reply to your post yesterday (basically with the same words as Alan), but I got carried away reading stuff on arstechnica (from vogon poetry to that new processor with 64 "brains" - copyright theinquirer)...

Regarding "it is up to the user or the service provider to determine what is or is not objectionable": it's good to see some common sense coming from where you would expect least...
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