[Updated] France's second-largest ISP deploys ad blocking via firmware update

[nsane.forums]

Block is enabled by default—French tech news sites are très unhappy.

The Freebox acts as DSL modem, router, Wi-Fi router, NAS, DVR, and DECT base—all in one single device.

France's darling indie ISP, Free, has shaken up the French Internet landscape yet again: in a quiet firmware update released Wednesday evening, the company added an ad blocking option to its Freebox router and activated it by default.

On its developer blog, the company simply wrote (in French) that the Freebox's firmware update 1.1.9 included the “[a]ddition of an ad blocker that allows ad blocking (beta)”

The new move means that any user who has the new firmware will have ad blocking on any device connecting to the Internet via the Freebox.

Ars e-mailed the Free engineer who authored the blog post, Florian Fainelli, for comment, but we did not immediately receive a response. A French tech news site, Clubic, noted that the blocking doesn’t seem to have universally taken effect yet across the country.

“As far as we can tell, at first glance... few sites seem to be affected by this block,” the site reported (Google Translate) on Thursday. “Some ads on portals like portail.free.fr are effectively blocked at the Paris bureau of Clubic, but not for our colleagues in Lyon, even after they restarted their Freebox.”

However, a French Ars reader, @arkos_reed, confirmed that the update had taken effect in the southern city of Cannes and was blocking Ars' ads.

Meanwhile, Benjamin Sonntag, of the French online advocacy group, La Quadrature du Net, sent Ars screenshots while using Free in Paris, showing that ads on the French tech news site Numérama were not blocked, but ads on the site of French newspaper Le Monde were.

Ad blocking hurts, seriously

Not surprisingly, many French sites are not happy about the move, which doesn’t have a whitelist option—it’s all or nothing.

“Free is being totally irresponsible and threatens to bring a violent blow to an entire segment of the digital economy!” said Numérama. That site also reported that the block appears to affect a number of large ad networks, including Google Adsense, NetAvenir, and AdTech.

Another French tech news site devoted to following Free—Freenews—penned a blog post arguing how and why its readers should disable this option. (Ars made a similar argument against ad blocking back in 2010.)

“We believe that Free's choice [to enable ad blocking] is dangerous and irresponsible; [by] activating default ad blocking without informing the user and without even offering a whitelist function to choose sites which the user wants to keep advertising, Free runs the risk of jeopardizing thousands of content publishers on the web,” Yoann Ferret wrote. “Most free sites like Freenews rely on advertising to fund themselves. Without advertising, they would no longer exist, we would no longer exist.”

View: Original Article

[DKT27]

That's great! They are killing 99% of websites by killing their revenue. -_-

[myidisbb]

just means more email spam

[calguyhunk]

That shouldn't be enabled by default. This is exactly what gets most peoples' goat :angry: The ISPs and Govt. should just let internet be. By default, people (adults) should get to know what the internet really is - the good, the bad and the ugly ;)

Ad blocking through (optional) firmware updates is a good idea, but give the consumers an option as to what they'd like to do. If you wanna turn it off, great. If not, your call :yes:

I also think that they may have rushed it out a bit in order to be the first to implement this novel idea. Maybe future updates will allow for whitelisting sites/domains/pages and also disabling individual filters and adding new ones manually. Dunno if that's technically feasible though ATM :think:

P.S. - Not an ad-lover myself. Use ad blockers and tracking protection lists myself with certain sites like Nsane, Ars etc. whitelisted :D

[SnakeMasteR]

Next FW update brings TPB block by default. :tehe:

[speedy57]

The only problem that i see is that is enable by default. It's a beta version and they're still working on this.

But what you have to know is that Free and Google are in conflict specially about publicity and the sharing of their incomes that's certainly why the Google AdSense are blocked.

;)

[DKT27]

France's second-largest ISP suspends ad blocking for now

French government intervenes in revenue dispute between Free and Google.

After turning on an ISP-level ad blocking option by default—and after meeting Monday with French government officials—France’s second-largest ISP decided to temporarily suspend its controversial move for “two to three weeks” (Google Translate) until it’s able to reach a revenue agreement with Google.

Last week, Free quietly released a new update to its router (known as a Freebox) firmware, which installed an ad blocking feature. While many users use ad blocking on their own browsers or computers, this marked the first time any major ISP, anywhere, installed ad blocking at the ISP level.

Free has still not responded to Ars' repeated requests for comment. Google also did not immediately respond.

The move was quickly dubbed “AdGate” by the French media, and it appears to have stemmed from a revenue dispute between Free and Google. In France, like in many places, ISPs have been getting upset with the search giant driving large amounts of traffic (most notably, YouTube) over their networks.

As we reported in June 2012, this is a battle that may sound familiar. In fact, it’s an argument that SBC (now AT&T) tried to make eight years ago. It’s an argument Verizon made in 2006. It’s an argument that European carriers tried to make against Apple and Google in 2010. It’s an argument that was repeated Stateside in 2011. More recently, it’s an argument Dutch ISP KPN tried to make in 2011 in the Netherlands—only to be later met with Europe’s first net neutrality law. In short, we wholeheartedly disagree with this entire line of reasoning.

What's good enough for Orange...

Still, last year, France’s largest ISP, Orange (the brand name of France Telecom), managed to strike a deal (Google Translate) with Google that required Mountain View to compensate Orange for some of the traffic it was sending. For months now, Free has tried to put pressure on Google to get a similar deal by throttling YouTube traffic for Free users.

When that didn’t work, Free then implemented its ad block last week—which affected, according to BFM Business (Google Translate), all of Google’s ad servers. This halted ads alongside search, Gmail, and YouTube.

As a result, French online media groups were definitely not happy and the French government quickly got involved. The telecom regulatory agency, known as ARCEP, sent a letter to Free last week.

On Monday, France’s digital economy minister, Fleur Pellerin, held meetings with the heads of France’s ad agencies and online publishers to discuss the block. Pellerin also met one-on-one (Google Translate) with Maxime Lombardini, director-general of Illiad, Free’s parent company. In an interview with the French newspaper La Tribune, Pellerin demurred (Google Translate) on the underlying issue.

“Today there are real questions about the distribution of value among content providers, notably video—which consume a lot of bandwidth—and operators,” she said. “In the United States, paid confidential agreements have been signed with some operators. In France and in Europe, we must find ways of integrating more consensual [agreements] between Internet giants [with] national ecosystems. Free’s initiative clearly highlights the immediate importance of this issue.”

View: Original Article

[calguyhunk]

So everybody has a say on what the users can and cannot see on the net but for the users themselves :doh: - the corporate content provider (Google in this case), the service provider (Free) and now the Government - all get in on the act uninvited :uhuh: and guess who gets left out from the decision making process? Your guess is as good as mine :frusty: