The tool, 12ft, allows people to avoid paying subscriptions to access news and academic journals that restrict who can read them.
Paywalls are a popular method of ensuring subscriptions within the news industry, partly due to the industry losing an growing share of the advertising market to the "de-facto duopoly" of Google and Facebook.
The tool's creator, Thomas Millar, claims to have created it at the beginning of the COVID pandemic when he was doing research and found that eight of the top 10 links on Google were paywalled.
His tool works by effectively reconfiguring the user's web browser so it appears to be a Google crawler. Sites will often share their full text with Google to achieve a higher ranking in Google Search.
Because his tool doesn't actually modify the paywalled website, just the visitor's browser, it would not be considered an offence under the Computer Misuse Act.
What is the tool for?
Mr Millar does not say he wants to prevent news organisations from generating subscription revenues, though this is the ultimate effect of his tool.
He said: "I believe Google Adwords killed the web. Google Adwords incentivised sites to peddle SEO optimised garbage... Search results now show 'news', ads, and SEO spam instead of surfacing information."
Despite the criticisms of low-quality content appearing in Google Search, 12ft advertises itself on the basis of working "with your favourite websites" and shows as an example the tool removing the paywall for the Economist....
Read Full Story: https://www.radioexe.co.uk/news-and-features/strange-news/paywall-breaking-tool-12ft-asks-users-to-subscribe-to-cover-costs/
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