We hate to keep reporting yawn-inducing, self-evident news – but it’s our duty to inform you that ad blocking has been found 100 percent legal (again). This time the court weighed in on our Acceptable Ads initiative as well … and it turns out that’s OK, too.

As readers of this blog will remember, just a month ago a group of (gigantic) German publishers took us to court in Hamburg because they thought ad blocking should be outlawed. Well, a second group of giants, this time from TV, came to Munich with similar complaints. The difference is that the Munich case was a little more complicated. The publishers who sued us this time also attacked our Acceptable Ads initiative.

The reaction of the court was just the same though: ad blocking is just fine.

For those of you interested in the details, here’s a quick rundown of the facts:

The plaintiffs (the parties that sued us) are Pro 7/Sat 1 and RTL Interactive. These companies are large television broadcasters with many websites. The defendant is Eyeo GmbH (the company that administers Adblock Plus).

The lawsuit charged that users should not be allowed to block ads on their sites, and that we should not be allowed to offer our Acceptable Ads initiative.

The Munich judge ruled against the plaintiffs and in favor of Adblock Plus, upholding the right of Adblock Plus users everywhere to continue to block annoying ads and protect their privacy, as well as our right to continue to encourage better ads through our Acceptable Ads initiative.

Hairy lawsuits aside, now it’s time for us to concentrate on more important things like our new Adblock Browser. It’s also time to again invite publishers and advertisers to help us make nonintrusive ads that users accept.

As usual, you know where to find us.

Commenting is closed for this article.