Now it seems that this practice has landed the video streaming service in hot water, as a privacy consultant has filed criminal charges against the platform in Europe.
YouTube is in trouble, and the EU is threatening
According to The Register, Alexander Hanff has filed a complaint against YouTube under the Irish Computer Abuse Act. Hanff says he has notified the Irish National Police of his intention to give evidence on that criminal complaint, and the police have acknowledged his complaint and asked him for more information on the matter.
Hanff talks about YouTube being responsible for running illegal tracking scripts that help the platform detect ad blockers, and this practice means the streamer is spying on EU citizens.
YouTube’s new ad blocker detection might be illegal under European law—privacy campaigner Alexander Hanff is taking the fight to the European Commission. https://t.co/ibvJrvH3Kv
In addition to the spying allegations, Hanff has also filed a civil complaint against YouTube’s browser interrogation system responsible for detecting ad blockers with the Irish Data Protection Commission. Authorities are already going after Google for answers to the complaint filed against the video streaming platform.
“I consider the YouTube script to be spyware, also known as surveillance technology, as it is deployed without my knowledge or authorization on my device for the sole purpose of intercepting and monitoring my behavior,” he told The Register.
Hanff’s hope is that this criminal complaint will send a message to YouTube and make Google stop its surveillance practices contrary to EU law. The platform has not asked for any consent from citizens.
We’ll see how it turns out, as we don’t know how YouTube or Google will respond to this, but if this makes it past the first instances and the Irish government agrees with him… it will start an interesting battle.
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