Is Germany on the Brink of Banning Ad Blockers? User Freedom, Privacy, and Security Is At Risk
Across the internet, users rely on browsers and extensions to shape how they experience the web: to protect their privacy, improve accessibility, block harmful or intrusive content, and take control over what they see. But a recent ruling from Germany’s Federal Supreme Court risks turning one of these essential tools, the ad blocker, into a copyright liability — and in doing so, threatens the broader principle of user choice online. Imagine you are watching television and you go to the kitchen for a snack during an ad break. Or you press the fast-forward button to skip some ads while listening to a podcast. Or perhaps you get a newspaper delivered to your house, and you see that it includes a special section made up of hallucinated AI content, so you drop the inset into the trash…
