In a landmark decision, on April 19, 2018, the German Federal Court of Justice decided that the ad blocking application and browser-extension Adblock Plus does not violate the German Unfair Competition Act (Gesetz gegen den Unlauteren Wettbewerb – UWG). Offering software that allows users to block advertising does not constitute an unfair commercial practice, even if the business model provides advertisers with the option to pay for showing certain ads (“whitelisting”).
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