Q&A: Adblocker
Adblocker
Question
There are programs that block advertisements on the internet (that is, when I enter a certain website, it sends me the site’s content together with advertisements, and the program simply blocks the advertisements it sends). Is there a halakhic problem with using such a program? (Should we say that the advertisements are a kind of payment for the site’s content?).
Answer
Seemingly yes. But if the program is legal, I don’t think there is really a prohibition involved. Still, this is not entirely clear to me, because perhaps there is an implicit stipulation here. Even so, I don’t think it is actually forbidden.
Discussion on Answer
I think there are some who didn’t know about the option, or didn’t know how to use it, or didn’t want to spend money on it. So that does not necessarily indicate consent. Reason would suggest that they would not agree. But this is an additional point in support of the leniency I wrote above: they should have stated it explicitly.
Nowadays there are quite a few sites that, when you enter them, ask you to remove the ad blocker in order to continue viewing the site’s content.
If so, seemingly when a given site does not make such a demand, then they have no problem with the blocking, and there is implicit consent. No?