German megapublisher Axel Springer is asking a German court to ban an ad-blocker.
They claim HTML/ CSS of their sites are protected computer programs.
And influencing they are displayed (e.g by removing ads) violates copyright.
I'm in puzzled wonderment at this claim.
Preventing ad-blocking would be a huge blow to German cybersecurity and privacy.
There are critical security & privacy reasons to influence how a websites code gets displayed.
Like stripping out dangerous code & malvertising.
Hacking risks from the online advertising are documented.
Any attempt to force Germans to run all of the code on a website without consideration for their privacy and security rights and needs will end very, very poorly.
Defining HTML/CSS as a protected computer program will quickly lead to absurdities touching every corner of the internet.
Just think of the potential infringements:
-Screen readers for the blind
-'Dark mode' bowser extensions
-Displaying snippets of code in a university class
-Inspecting & modifying code in your own browser
-Website translators
Or blocking unwanted trackers.
This is why most governments do it on their systems.
I'm not a lawyer, but if Axel Springer wins the consequences are just nuts:
Basic stuff like bookmarking & saving a local copy of a website might be legally risky.
The Wayback Machine & internet archives and libraries might be violators.
This might even extend to search engines displaying excerpts of sites.
Code sharing sites like GitHub could become a liability minefield...
The list goes on and on.
Finally, only one country has banned ad-blockers. China.
This is not good company for Germany.
READ MORE: From Mozilla https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2025/08/14/is-germany-on-the-brink-of-banning-ad-blockers-user-freedom-privacy-and-security-is-at-risk/
Bleeping Computer: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/legal/mozilla-warns-germany-could-soon-declare-ad-blockers-illegal/