Closed-source browser extension Pie Adblock was this week accused of copying code and textual content from rival uBlock Origin in violation of the latter’s software program license – the GNU GPL model 3.
Since that declare was made and The Register inquired in regards to the matter, Pie Adblock’s maker printed supplies up to now few hours which can be on the coronary heart of the extension and clearly come from uBlock Origin in addition to Adguard, one other competitor.
That publication states the information, utilized by Pie AdBlock to dam adverts on the net, include “modified variations of textual content guidelines from [uBlock Origin’s] uAssets and scriplets from AdGuard Scriptlets, which can be licensed underneath the GPL v3 license … Repository open supply licensed underneath GNU GPL v3 license.”
Thus, Pie Adblock was accused of lifting code and textual content from the GPL’d uBlock Origin, not less than, with out assembly the GPL’s necessities – corresponding to stating who owns the copyright on these parts and the way they are often obtained – and now its developer has made not less than some materials publicly accessible and acknowledged the authors as uBlock Origin and Adguard.
The Pie Adblock crew additionally argued it met and meets all the mandatory necessities, and is sharing the info attributable to “the significance of contributing again.”
Honey entice
Pie Adblock was launched final 12 months by a startup known as The Individuals’s Web Experiment, aka pie.org, which was based by Ryan Hudson, co-founder of Honey – the browser extension acquired by PayPal in 2020 for $4 billion, which is now going through not less than one lawsuit [PDF] alleging affiliate fraud. Honey denies any wrongdoing.
Hudson launched pie.org final 12 months, providing an ad-blocking browser extension – accessible for desktop Google Chrome – that pays you in the event you select to see sure adverts. As of the tip of December 2024, Pie Adblock had racked up multiple million customers.
Extra particularly, the extension gives a Rewards for Adverts program that provides factors to customers who willingly view chosen adverts whereas others are blocked. These reward factors, the outfit says, “may be redeemed for money again.”
Although Pie Adblock additionally makes cash via affiliate commissions, the extension doesn’t have interaction within the affiliate code substitute Honey is alleged to have quietly pulled off, Hudson instructed us.
Relating to the authorized motion towards it, a spokesperson for Honey instructed us on Friday: “We dispute the allegations within the lawsuits, and can defend towards them vigorously. Honey is free to make use of and gives hundreds of thousands of consumers with further financial savings on their purchases every time attainable. Honey helps retailers scale back cart abandonment and comparability buying whereas rising gross sales conversion.”
License to grill
After the highlight was turned on Honey over the Christmas break, consideration moved to Pie Adblock, resulting in this week’s allegations of code misuse.
Social media sleuths posting to Reddit claimed Pie Adblock had included code and information from uBlock Origin together with the latter’s Fast Fixes filter listing with out the mandatory acknowledgements and different necessities.
And certainly when The Register checked the extension’s information utilizing the Chrome Extension Supply Viewer, the Pie Adblock file adblock-rulesets/included-filters/ubo-ads.txt included a hyperlink to the uBlock Origin uAssets repo’s GPL v3 license.
Different information within the Pie Adblock extension additionally appeared to include uBlock Origin supply code.
Supply code made accessible underneath the GNU GPL v3, corresponding to uBlock Origin’s code, is meant to be shared and utilized in different initiatives, topic to the license necessities. A type of necessities, moreover together with the unique copyright discover, is that the license underneath which that software program is obtainable needs to be clear.
And till just some hours in the past, the Pie Adblock extension didn’t clearly state the licensing phrases of some elements of its product; now it does, albeit on a GitHub repo that we will not see linked to from any Pie Adblock webpages.
The corporate’s phrases of service additionally impose numerous limitations that look like incompatible with GPL freedoms. For instance, customers could not “duplicate, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or decode the providers (together with any underlying thought or algorithm), or try to do any of the identical.” The Pie Adblock Extension is explicitly outlined as one of many biz’s providers. One other passage disallows copying or modifying providers, rights the GPL v3 helps.
The GPL is enforceable, so far as the courts within the US are involved, however the time and expense of doing so means such circumstances are uncommon. One such declare towards Vizio, filed in 2021 by the Software program Freedom Conservancy, is anticipated to be tried in September 2025.
Hudson instructed The Register his firm is conscious of the issues, and stated he takes neighborhood suggestions severely. However he contends Pie Adblock meets the GPL v3 necessities, telling us:
Curiously sufficient, it was claimed Pie AdBlock used uBlock Origin code and filter lists, although to date Pie AdBlock acknowledges utilizing simply the filter texts.
Requested about Pie Adblock, Raymond Hill, creator of uBlock Origin, instructed The Register, “I observed this weeks in the past however shrugged it off. Many different content material blocker extensions within the Chrome retailer are doing the identical or worse, utilizing the entire code base. It has at all times been like this.”
Hill pointed to a collection of posts he made in June 2024 about “sleazy rip-offs within the Chrome Net Retailer” that merely rewrap “uBlock, uBlock Lite, or different content material blockers with their very own person interface,” and a few monetization scheme, typically eradicating the copyright and licensing data. ®
