From December 10th you will no longer be able to use Adblock on YouTube: the announcement comes from Google itself, which is sending a notification to users who access its service.

Update: Youtube VS Adblock Update: Claims policy is transparent, yet it is vague

For years, YouTube has allowed the use of Adblock, or software that could bypass advertising content, on its platform. Now, however, YouTube has declared war on Adblocks, and above all on users who use them.

Adblock on YouTube: from December 10th everything changes

The new rules clearly state that:

” YouTube may prevent access if it believes, in its exclusive direction, that the provision of the Service for you is no longer commercially viable “

This means that Google, and YouTube, reserve the right not only to exclude users from the video streaming platform, but also to terminate the provision of all services. That ” commercially viable” indicates the status of users as exchange products: YouTube offers literally billions of videos for free, apart from the YouTube Originals content that are behind a toll barrier (paywall).

Since no user pays a penny, neither YouTube nor its advertisers, it is logical to think that the product to be sold is us users. In exchange for viewing advertisements, YouTube continues to provide a service for free that would otherwise cost tens if not hundreds of dollars a year.

It is therefore logical to think that Adblocks on YouTube are bad for the company to eradicate. Users on the other hand, always try to have the most comfortable and easy access to video content.

The blame for using Adblock, however, is often to be attributed also to the creators of content: it is not possible that in an 18-minute video there are 10 advertising breaks, including the pre-roll videos that are uploaded before you even watch the video.

Adblock on YouTube: is the ban risk real?

The risk for users who continue to use Adblock on YouTube is real. The company can freely exclude accounts that try to circumvent the new rules, using Adblock software or Adblock extensions.

Risk concerning the complete ban for other Google services, such as Gmail and Adsense, is less likely. We must consider that Google can always monetize its users in other ways, and the use of its services is fundamental: if a user is totally banned from using Google services, it is a lost product for the Mountain View company.

Let’s think, for example, about the searches we perform through the search engine, or about the advertising we display in Gmail and other Google-owned apps that are not YouTube. It is difficult to think that Google could ban users from all its services because they discovered to use Adblock on YouTube, but obviously it is not a hypothesis to be excluded a priori. The main sources of revenue for Google, and Alphabet, derive from advertising on the search engine and YouTube: a user who is not “commercially viable” is a useless user.

Adblocks to avoid being banned on YouTube

From December 10th we therefore advise you to eliminate any risk simply by no longer using any Adblock service when browsing the contents of the YouTube platform.

An example is the hundreds of YouTube Adblocks that are installed as browser extensions, such as:

Adblock

Adblock Plus

Ad Blocker for Chrome

Ghostery

uBlock

Smart Popup Blocker

Then there are those paid Adblock services that promise complete anonymity and security, such as AdFender, which lets you browse through the Tor network and block video ads, even on YouTube.

Obviously there are not only Adblock for YouTube on PC, but also for smartphones. Perhaps the most famous is AdAway, a very popular solution among Android users but which requires root permissions.

Whether you use a browser extension, such as Adblock for Chrome or Firefox, an application on a smartphone or a desktop client, our advice is to not use them to remove advertising from YouTube.

If you don’t want to risk the ban after December 10th for using ad blockers on YouTube, our advice is to disable them completely when you watch videos or remove them entirely from your PC.

Although, Youtube hasn’t commented on this matter yet.

Source: GizChina