YouTube has strengthened its anti-ad blocker policy, targeting many users around the world who have no choice but to deactivate their adblock, or take out a paid subscription. For the publishers of these solutions, the game of cat and mouse continues.
For several days, YouTube has been insisting that you deactivate the ad blocker of your favorite browser, or that you subscribe to a Premium subscription. The test launched a few months ago by the Google platform has accelerated and affects a large proportion of users around the world.
Read YouTube blocks ad blockers and this time, it’s serious
And it works. According to figures given by content blocker developers, YouTube’s tightening policy led to a massive wave of uninstalls — we are talking about several hundred thousand users who have deactivated or deleted their blockers.
Ad blockers in YouTube’s crosshairs
But at the same time, this industry has also recorded a peak in the installation of new blockers! A sign that users are actively looking for other solutions… This is the case for example at Ghostery, where the number of installations and uninstallations increased three to five times during the month of October. But the volume of activity is ultimately described as stable by the publisher, so not much has changed in the end.
Similarly, the AdLock extension recorded an increase of around 30% in installations and uninstallations in October. At AdGuard, on average 6,000 uninstallations are recorded every day for its Chrome extension. In October, this figure exceeded 11,000, it even reached 52,000 on October 18.
Interestingly, Ghostery noted a 30% increase in installations for Edge, Microsoft’s browser, between September and October. Users probably noticed that YouTube blocked ad blockers less on this software.
Google has a strange relationship with ad blockers. The company has banned these apps on the Play Store, but they are widely distributed on the official Chrome Web Store. Furthermore, who is the sponsor of the annual content blocker publishers’ event, which was held in Amsterdam? A certain… Google.
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Source :
Wired
