Li Tiaotiao, who helped you jump the advertisement, received a lawyer’s letter. Is this reasonable？
Original bad review jun bad review
Li tiaotiao was sent a letter.
But I’m not surprised because it’s only a matter of time.
Introduced by friends who are not familiar with "Li Tiaotiao", Li Tiaotiao is an Android App that can help you skip open-screen advertisements.
We have recommended Li Tiaotiao to everyone many times. You can also see a bunch of grass planting posts by just searching on social media platforms.
There are many bad reviews of Watching Pioneer 2.
Why is it so popular? Let me tell a cousin’s story:
One day, my cousin opened the mobile App to quickly check important information. At this time, a 5-second open-screen advertisement appeared in front of him.
He was a little impatient, but he had to squint like a hunter and look for the "skip" button all over the screen.
However, the button was too cunning. It was almost five seconds before he lit it-
And because the button is too small, he actually clicked on the advertisement. . .
He hates himself. Why can’t his fingers be as small as jumping buttons? It must be his problem!
Just when my cousin was disheartened, I recommended Li Tiaotiao to him.
Since then, my cousin has been upgraded, and he is no longer fighting alone.
The moment the advertisement pops up, Li will say: Let me do it.
After about 0.0925 seconds, Li Tiaotiao successfully found "Skip" and clicked it.
Cousin was so frightened that he didn’t even see the advertisement clearly.
He also found that Li Tiaotiao has built-in multiple scanning modes, and even if the advertisement has a fake skip button, Li Tiaotiao can get to the truth.
And such a software, it doesn’t cost money, it doesn’t need to be connected to the internet, and it doesn’t have to worry about privacy. . .
Now, you can understand why Li Tiaotiao has received countless praises.
Ok, let’s tell the story from another angle.
Imagine that you are a small company owner with a mobile phone application. For the sake of the company’s operation, you opened the advertising space.
Generally speaking, the charging method of open-screen advertising is CPC, which charges according to the number of times the advertisement is clicked.
You find that because of the existence of software like Li Tiaotiao, the number of times users click advertisements is much less.
Accordingly, your income has also decreased, and your salary will not be paid next month.
Whether you are angry or not, whether you want to fuck them or not, you even think that you have done it correctly, and the other party is in the wrong anyway.
That’s what I said at the beginning. It’s reasonable that Li Tiaotiao was engaged, because it affected the interests of others.
Let’s go back to the matter itself.
In the early morning of the 24th, Li Tiaotiao announced on the official WeChat official account that "the software will stop working indefinitely" and attached a lawyer’s letter.
The lawyer’s letter is coded and it can be seen that it comes from a large internet company.
The reason given by the other party is unfair competition.
It probably means that the software interferes with the operation mode and profit mode of the browser by shielding and filtering the advertisements of a browser, which constitutes unfair competition.
Let’s not talk about whether Li Tiaotiao can constitute unfair competition software.
There are many similar cases in the past, which can be used as reference.
Adblock Plus (hereinafter referred to as ABP), an advertising blocking plug-in in Germany, has been sued many times, basically for "constituting unfair competition".
In these cases, ABP has lost and won.
In 2015, ABP was considered as unfair competition by the Frankfurt state court and ruled that a temporary injunction was issued.
In 2018, Springer, the publisher of Le Monde, filed a lawsuit against ABP, and the German Supreme Court ruled that ABP did not violate the competition law.
People’s courts think that users have the right not to watch advertisements, just like advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and everyone can choose to ignore or turn pages.
After a year, Springer said that ABP infringed, and sued again in a different posture, but ABP still won.
The court will generally pay attention to two key factors-subjective will and degree of influence.
For example, in 2016, the court in Cologne, Germany, ruled that ABP itself did not violate the competition law (but other aspects lost), mainly saying two points.
First, ABP is not targeted to hinder others.
ABP is an open source software, which filters the advertisements of corresponding websites according to the list.
Note, however, that the list is public and can be modified and used by anyone.
ABP only intercepts content according to the list provided by users.
To make an inappropriate analogy, whether a kitchen knife is bought to cut vegetables or people depends on the buyer’s subjective will, and the kitchen knife is only responsible for "cutting".
Therefore, ABP is technology neutral and does not hinder others.
Second, ABP did not harm others excessively.
The court held that although ABP affected the plaintiff’s model: advertising+free content, there was no evidence that the plaintiff could not provide content without advertising. In addition, the plaintiff already has the technology to block users who use plug-ins.
This means that ABP does not affect other people’s business models too much.
There are similar cases in China.
In 2015, ADsafe was sued by Aiqiyi and PPTV, and violated the Anti-Unfair Competition Law by "infringing on others’ legitimate business model and making profits for themselves without justifiable reasons".
In 2019, Window of the World browser was sentenced to violate recognized business ethics for blocking Tencent video advertisements, which constituted unfair competition and compensated 1.89 million yuan.
In the same year, 720 browser was judged as unfair competition for intercepting and blocking mango TV advertisements, and compensated 800,000 yuan.
Although the legal provisions at home and abroad are different, the key points of such cases are quite consistent.
Blocking advertisements like 720 browser is actually a built-in ABP plug-in, which emphasizes that it is technology neutral in court.
However, the court held that he did not simply provide users with ABP technology for the benefit of users, but increased the browser’s own resources and sought more trading opportunities.
What he said about "technology neutrality" is obviously inconsistent with the facts.
The plot of the Window of the World browser case is also quite ups and downs.
At the first trial, the court held that Window of the World browser did not target Tencent video and did not cause fundamental damage, so it did not constitute unfair competition.
Later, Tencent refused to accept the appeal.
The court of second instance held that the browser violated the Interim Measures for the Administration of Internet Advertising in 2016.
"Internet advertising activities shall not provide or use applications, hardware, etc. to intercept, filter, cover, fast-forward and other restrictions on other people’s legitimate advertisements. 」
The court said that even if this provision is not considered, it is also an act of taking the initiative to directly intervene and intervene in other people’s business operations, which violates recognized business ethics and violates the anti-unfair competition law.
In addition, the court also held that Window of the World browser destroyed people’s business model, which would not only harm the interests of consumers, but also endanger the development space of online video industry in the long run.
So to sum up, the key points of this kind of cases are technical neutrality, subjective will, whether it has a far-reaching impact, and whether it violates the law and recognizes business ethics.
After reading the past cases, let’s go back to Li Tiaotiao.
First of all, the bad reviewer wants to ask a question from the operational logic:
Li Tiaotiao is a little different from filtering advertisements. It just helps people click "Skip".
It’s like I hired a brother who has been single for 30 years. He just responded a little faster and his hand was a little faster. After the advertisement appeared, he helped us to "skip".
This, this doesn’t work either. . .
Moreover, it can be seen from Li Tiaotiao’s confession that Li Tiaotiao has no profit.
In order to solve the question, the bad judge consulted a lawyer friend, who said that Li Tiaotiao may indeed constitute "unfair competition".
You may wonder, Li Tiaotiao is not profitable, and he is not an operator. How can it constitute unfair competition?
This sentence may have worked in the past, but the unfair competition law was changed in 2017.
The revision in 2017 expanded the scope of operators from the perspective of "behavioral characteristics", from the original "commodity management or profit-making services" to "commodity production, management or service provision", and the providers of commodity production and non-profit services were also included in the scope of operators.
Therefore, even if Li Tiaotiao is not profitable, he may be an operator, and his subjective will constitutes "unfair competition."
Of course, whether Li Tiao Tiao constitutes unfair competition law or not, at the end of the story, Li Tiao Tiao all chose to stop the watch indefinitely. . .
I don’t think people need to feel too bad.
First, as long as there is an installation package, you can continue to use it, but the App can’t be updated and maintained later.
Second, we should be clear about what phenomenon Li Tiaotiao is the product of.
It is the phenomenon that advertisers cross the sea, show their magical powers and try their best to deceive and mislead users to click on advertisements.
Some advertisements have no skip buttons, some have fake skip buttons, some are so small that they are almost invisible, and some skip buttons need to be pressed twice.
Some advertisements put a "fake play button", some put a "fake return button", and some put a "fake message pop-up".
Even some obviously click skip, but there is still a certain probability to enter the details. . .
At that time, as soon as we opened the mobile App, we had to fight with advertisers and fight with each other on a few inches of screen.
Under this kind of internet advertising chaos, Li Tiaotiao appeared.
For users, Li Tiaotiao is Robin Hood who robs the rich and helps the poor. If it is done by the iron fist of capital, most people will naturally take their side.
But that was before.
Since May 1st this year, the State implemented the Measures for the Administration of Internet Advertisements, which explicitly prohibited all kinds of situations of cheating and misleading users to click on advertisements, the above phenomenon has actually decreased a lot.
Of course, you can’t say no.
I want to say that the demand for this kind of software is negatively related to the standardization of advertising.
The more standardized your advertisement is, the less people will resent it, and the fewer people will naturally use Li Tiaotiao.
If one day, when all the open-screen advertisements can make users simply find the skip button and click it quickly and conveniently, then everyone doesn’t need Li Tiaotiao. . .
To some extent, Li Tiaotiao has a sense of Dying to Survive. They are not absolutely correct products, and they will not be invincible in the law because they are widely supported by everyone.
However, as a former beneficiary, as a user who was deeply poisoned by open-screen advertisements, I still want to say thank you to the developers behind Li Tiaotiao.
Written by: Hedgehog Editor: Mangshan welding head Noodle Cover: Huan Yan
Pictures and data sources:
China Intellectual Property News: Blocking other people’s advertisements was awarded millions of compensation.
Wang Heshu, Beijing Yuntian Law Firm: An Analysis of the Illegality of Advertising Interception —— A Comparative Demonstration Based on Extraterritorial Judgments
Because of the built-in advertisement interception function, another domestic browser developer was sued by the video website, claiming 1 million yuan.
Measures for the Administration of Internet Advertising
Adblocking Does Not Constitute Copyright Infringement , Court Rules
Court hands adblock startup Eyeo victory against Axel Springer
https : //openjur.de/u/891571.html
Li Tiao Tiao WeChat official account
Original title: "Li Tiaotiao, who helped you jump the advertisement, received a lawyer’s letter. Is this reasonable? 》
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