AdBlock software is contrary to competition law

The prevention of the display of advertising content on a website by the ad-blocking software AdBlock is contrary to competition law. This is how the Regional Court (LG) Frankfurt a.M. decided in preliminary injunction proceedings brought by the operator of the online newspaper "Die Welt".

Like numerous other daily newspapers, "Die Welt" also provides articles as part of its online offering at www.welt.de. The use of this online offering is fundamentally free of charge. This is financed essentially through the marketing of advertising space. However, the online advertising content is only compensated if it is visible to the user or clicked on. The software AdBlock, however, intervenes in the delivery of the contents of a website in such a way that the display of advertising content is prevented. In this way, AdBlock blocked all advertising content on www.welt.de, as a result of which the operator incurred annual losses in the millions. For this reason, it demanded in preliminary injunction proceedings, inter alia, the prohibition of the supply of this software including its mobile version.

Court decision on AdBlock

The Regional Court (LG) Frankfurt a.M. decided in favour of the operator of the online newspaper (Order of 26.11.2015, AZ 3-06 O 105/15) and granted the application in full. In doing so, the court proceeded on the basis of a concrete competitive relationship between the parties, not least because the supply of the AdBlock software was considered suitable to adversely affect the competition of the operator of welt.de. The latter had made credible that the ad-blocker interfered with its digital offerings at welt.de and that as a result advertising revenue that was necessary to finance the digital offerings was being lost to it to a considerable extent. The targeted elimination of third-party advertising was regularly unfair. In the prevention of the display of advertising by the AdBlock software, there lay a targeted, direct thwarting of advertising and thus a targeted obstruction.

Conclusion

The decision of the Regional Court (LG) Frankfurt a.M. was handed down without prior hearing of AdBlock and in this context represents an exception. In the past, operators of online newspapers have taken action against providers of ad-blocking software, albeit without success. Thus the Regional Court (LG) Hamburg (Judgment of 21.04.2015, Az.: 416 HK O 159/14) dismissed the complaint of other online newspaper operators for lack of anticompetitive obstruction. The Regional Court (LG) Munich I (Judgment of 27.05.2015, Az. 37 O 11673/14) and the Regional Court (LG) Cologne (Judgment of 29.09.2015, Az. 33 O 132/14) have concurred with this view.