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A comment on YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers. Parent comment

Re:YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers by wkat4242 on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @09:53PM (#35896332)
Theft is a criminal law term. So is the act of prosecution. Terms of Service are a civil law thing. IANAL but this still makes it not theft in my view, but breach of contract.

It's questionable how enforceable a ToS is though that is only clicked with a button and in some cases (eg NewPipe) not shown at all. But either way it's civil law not criminal.

YouTube is totally within their rights to block adblocking viewers though. Which is a fine solution for this problem IMO. No need to get the law involved.

More and more sites are doing this now though on most of them it's easily bypassed (on the site I use the most I can just turn off JavaScript :) )

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers by pb7 on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @10:22PM (#35896546)
Theft is both criminal and civil. If you steal something from me, I can sue you in civil court to recoup the cost, and if it's a significant enough something, then I can also try to file a police report and get the DA to press charges against you. You're right, "prosecution" refers to criminal court, but you know what I meant.
[ Parent | on HN ]