It appears that we may be about to experience a new phase in the life of Article 5 (3) of the ePrivacy Directive as amended in 2009, as brief as it may possibly be as a result of the coming Regulation and the revisions that the ePrivacy Directive may be subject to in its wake.

Twitter privacy activist Alexander Hanff has been able to create considerable attention (such as here and here) for his position that client side scripts used by publishers in order to detect AdBlockers used by their (would-be) readers are in conflict with said Article, posting on Twitter a letter from the Günther Oettinger’s team in the EU Commission that, as per him, confirms his position.

https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/722861362607747072

Aside from the slightly amusing twist that the Commission, in making reference in the same letter to add-ons or plug-ins expressing a user’s preference regarding, for example, whether or not he or she does or does not accept the storage of information on his/her “terminal equipment”, appears to overlook that adblockers have to be detected first before they can be “respected” as conveying a preference, we shall have a brief look at how things would play out under German law, as it is in place at this time. Continue reading →