The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) has asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate unlawful ad blocking. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) fears that it could lead to banning popular privacy protection software.
The NAA argues that certain ad blocking technologies and related services violate Section 5 of the FTC Act as unfair and deceptive trade practices. The organisation represents nearly 2,000 newspapers in the United States and wants the FTC to specifically investigate adblockers that can evade metered subscription systems, circumvent paywalls or replace existing ads with other ads.
The complaint specifically mentions Adblock developer Eyeo, the NAA writes, "The complaint calls on the FTC to investigate Eyeo's practice of using paid whitelisting that misleads the consumer into believing the "acceptable" advertisement is based on quality, when in fact advertisements are passed along to consumers if advertisers pay a fee."
In response, the EFF posted an article on its website stating it is especially worried that the NAA will achieve that adblockers that circumvent paywalls will be banned.
"NAA's call to ban software that enables users to evade metered subscription systems and paywalls is the most worrisome. Regardless of the reason or effect, users should be able to employ software that provides anonymity from one website visit to the next", the EFF writes.
The EFF also notes that users should be able to visit any website anonymously for whatever reason, "Internet users have many legitimate reasons to stop websites from tracking them across multiple visits. That’s why most modern browsers include a "private" or "incognito" mode. It’s also one of the important features of the Tor network, which is designed to allow for anonymous Internet use over time."
"The FTC should curb practices that deceive users with sneaky and unwanted changes to the Web experience, whether done by ad-blockers, ad networks, or others. But in so doing, the FTC must be careful not to take autonomy and control away from Internet users", the EFF concludes.
