[Bug]: Allow installation of uBlock Origin for users in China — 2016 ad-blocking ban has been repealed

[wangw469]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

What happened?

When I try to access https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/ from China, the page shows:

That page is not available in your region

I suspect this geo-restriction was put in place to comply with the 2016 Interim Measures on the Administration of Internet Advertising (Order No. 87, SAIC), whose Article 16 prohibited:

"providing or utilizing any application, hardware or so on to block, filter, cover or skip another's legitimate ad"

However, those Interim Measures were repealed and replaced on May 1, 2023 by the Measures on the Administration of Internet Advertising (Order No. 72, SAMR). The 2023 Measures contain no prohibition on ad blocking, ad filtering, or similar user-side tools.

Article 32 of the 2023 Measures states:

These Measures are to take effect on May 1, 2023. The Temporary Measures on the Administration of Internet Advertising promulgated by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce as order No. 87 on July 4, 2016, are simultaneously repealed.

If this geo-restriction is indeed based on the 2016 rules, the legal basis for it no longer exists. Please allow users in China to install this add-on.

References:

• 2016 Interim Measures (original Chinese): https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2016/content_5120707.htm
• 2023 Measures (English translation): https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/internet-advertising/
• 2023 Measures (official Chinese): https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/202305/content_6858084.htm

What did you expect to happen?

Can access and install ublock from China IP address.

┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task

[wangw469]

uBlock Origin Lite is available as Safari extension on China's App Store：
https://apps.apple.com/cn/app/ublock-origin-lite/id6745342698