“A War on All Ad-Blockers”

Part of the ongoing Big Tech's War on Users series. In April 2016, seventeen newspaper publishers, The New York Times and Tribune Publishing among them, sent a cease-and-desist letter to a brand-new browser company called Brave. Brave's plan was to strip the ads off websites and sell its own in their place, and the publishers called it theft. Brave's reply had a line I keep coming back to. Per Computerworld, the company warned that the letter was "the first shot in a war on all ad-blockers, not just on Brave." On Monday, the Times and Tribune's papers finally pulled the trigger. Two Complaints, One Template The New York Times and, separately, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel sued Brave Software in federal court in Manhattan on November 2nd. Same law firm, near-identical complaints. PPC Land has the most thorough breakdown I've found, and it's worth the read. Both complaints plead the same five counts: Direct copyright infringement, over Brave's…

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