A website designed to help internet users get around paywalls has begun asking those users to subscribe to cover its costs.
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.
I'm making it my mission to clean the web.
— Thomas Millar (@thmsmlr) February 6, 2022
It started with https://t.co/dftOatQ5Z6 when 8 of the top 10 links on Google were paywalled when I was doing COVID research at the beginning of the pandemic. Unbelievable.
But i'm not done
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...
Read Full Story: https://news.sky.com/story/paywall-breaking-tool-12ft-asks-users-to-subscribe-to-cover-costs-12536304
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