News Publishers Take Paywall-Blocker 12ft.io Offline

The Verge's Emma Roth reports: The News/Media Alliance, a trade association behind major news publishers, announced that it has 'successfully secured' the removal of 12ft.io, a website that helped users bypass paywalls online. The trade association says 12ft.io's webhost took down the site on July 14th 'following the News/Media Alliance's efforts.' 12ft.io -- or 12 Foot Ladder -- also allowed users to view webpages without ads, trackers, or pop-ups by disguising a user's browser as a web crawler, giving them unfettered access to a webpage's contents. Software engineer Thomas Millar says he created the site when he realized '8 of the top 10 links on Google were paywalled' when doing research during the pandemic.

In its announcement, News/Media Alliance says 12ft.io 'offered illegal circumvention technology' that allowed users to access copyrighted content without paying for it. The organization adds that it will take 'similar actions' against other sites that let users get around paywalls. The News Media Alliance recently called Google's AI Mode 'theft.' (Like many chatbots, Google's AI Mode eliminates the need to visit a website, starving publishers of the pageviews they need to be compensated for their work.) 'Publishers commit significant resources to creating the best and most informative content for consumers, and illegal tools like 12ft.io undermine their ability to financially support that work through subscriptions and ad revenue,' News/Media Alliance president and CEO Danielle Coffey said in the press release. 'Taking down paywall bypassers is an essential part of ensuring we have a healthy and sustainable information ecosystem.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.