YouTube’s Ad Blocker Detection Believed to Break EU Privacy Law
Wired
7 Nov 2023
A complaint filed with the EU’s independent data regulator accuses YouTube of failing to get explicit user permission for its ad blocker detection system, potentially violating the ePrivacy Directive. Privacy campaigner Alexander Hanff claims that YouTube’s new ad blocker detection is illegal under European law, and he's taking the fight to the European Commission.
On November 6, German Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer addressed Hanff’s claim to the European Commission, formally requesting a legal position as to whether “protection of information stored on the device (Article 5(3) ePR) also cover information as to whether the user's device hides or blocks certain page elements, or whether ad-blocking software is used on the device” and—critically—if this kind of detection is “absolutely necessary to provide a service such as YouTube.”
