Today I filed a formal complaint against #YouTube with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner for their illegal deployment of #adblock detection technologies.
Under Article 5(3) of 2002/58/EC YouTube are legally obligated to obtain consent before storing or accessing information already stored on an end user's terminal equipment unless it is strictly necessary for the provisions of the requested service.
In 2016 the EU Commission confirmed in writing that adblock detection requires consent.
This isn’t the solution people think it is. The only thing Google needs to do now to make it legal is to force a prompt asking for your consent where if you disagree you are completely blocked off from the site. That is, assuming Alexander Hanff, the one carrying on this narrative since 2016, is correct and interpreted the response correctly. In Article 5 of the 2002/58/EC there is a second paragraph that states the following:
Paragraph 1 shall not affect any legally authorised
recording of communications and the related traffic data when
carried out in the course of lawful business practice for the
purpose of providing evidence of a commercial transaction or
of any other business communication.
I’m no lawyer, but I tell you who has them in droves, Google and YouTube, whom I’m sure have already discussed whether their primary means of business revenue, ads, could be construed as a commercial transaction for which evidence is needed. I’m not sure how a two page reply from the EU commission to his request telling him Article 5 applies really helps the guy out if Article 5 also includes the means by which YouTube is allowed to run scripts that provide evidence that ads have been able to be properly reproduced.
Still, assuming Alexander Hanff is right, Google just needs to add a consent form and begin blocking access to all content if users disagree, so it seems to me his claim is damned if he is right, and damned if he isn’t right.
The only thing Google needs to do now to make it legal is to force a prompt asking for your consent where if you disagree you are completely blocked off from the site.
This isn’t the solution people think it is. The only thing Google needs to do now to make it legal is to force a prompt asking for your consent where if you disagree you are completely blocked off from the site. That is, assuming Alexander Hanff, the one carrying on this narrative since 2016, is correct and interpreted the response correctly. In Article 5 of the 2002/58/EC there is a second paragraph that states the following:
I’m no lawyer, but I tell you who has them in droves, Google and YouTube, whom I’m sure have already discussed whether their primary means of business revenue, ads, could be construed as a commercial transaction for which evidence is needed. I’m not sure how a two page reply from the EU commission to his request telling him Article 5 applies really helps the guy out if Article 5 also includes the means by which YouTube is allowed to run scripts that provide evidence that ads have been able to be properly reproduced.
Still, assuming Alexander Hanff is right, Google just needs to add a consent form and begin blocking access to all content if users disagree, so it seems to me his claim is damned if he is right, and damned if he isn’t right.
GDPR does not allow this.