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If a site declares that you should not access it without disabling your adblocker, and they go as far as to explicitly try to prevent your access with direct me

If a site declares that you should not access it without disabling your adblocker, and they go as far as to explicitly try to prevent your access with direct messaging (interstitials, pop-up/light boxes, etc.), yet the user then works around those protections and accesses it - wouldn't that qualify as illegal access in some form?

shakna 10y ago
How so? A user requests a data stream, and receives it. That the user chooses not to execute or render a part of that stream is up to them - the data has already been delivered. Interstitials, pop-ups and the like are simply contained within the stream, and aren't even guaranteed to run inside the browser. If the data connection is incomplete, modern browsers often discard data that is incomplete. Is that also illegal access? The data stream is in the user's hands - and it is delivered before any Terms and Conditions are given. It's similar to someone giving you a burger, saying it's free, waiting till you take the first bite, and then demanding that you eat the rest whilst they photograph you, and then use said photos to pay for making the burgers. You could just walk away with your free burger.
matheusmoreira 10y ago
Anticircumvention laws may or may not apply. I'm not sure. It certainly sounds like it does. The thing is I don't think those laws are very successful at preventing anything. They didn't save the music records, movies and video games industries. They're still actively fighting against the user, an adversary that has all the power. DVD content was successfully decrypted despite the DMCA; ironically, genuine games are often inferior to their pirated counterparts. A site without ads has better usability and is more secure. Even if sites say you can't access content already transmitted to your computer unless you view ads, they're not in a position to enforce that. A bunch of laws saying people can't circumvent their protection won't suddenly change that fact.

shakna 10y ago

How so? A user requests a data stream, and receives it. That the user chooses not to execute or render a part of that stream is up to them - the data has already been delivered. Interstitials, pop-ups and the like are simply contained within the stream, and aren't even guaranteed to run inside the browser. If the data connection is incomplete, modern browsers often discard data that is incomplete. Is that also illegal access? The data stream is in the user's hands - and it is delivered before any Terms and Conditions are given. It's similar to someone giving you a burger, saying it's free, waiting till you take the first bite, and then demanding that you eat the rest whilst they photograph you, and then use said photos to pay for making the burgers. You could just walk away with your free burger.

matheusmoreira 10y ago

Anticircumvention laws may or may not apply. I'm not sure. It certainly sounds like it does. The thing is I don't think those laws are very successful at preventing anything. They didn't save the music records, movies and video games industries. They're still actively fighting against the user, an adversary that has all the power. DVD content was successfully decrypted despite the DMCA; ironically, genuine games are often inferior to their pirated counterparts. A site without ads has better usability and is more secure. Even if sites say you can't access content already transmitted to your computer unless you view ads, they're not in a position to enforce that. A bunch of laws saying people can't circumvent their protection won't suddenly change that fact.