YouTube Steps Up Fight Against Ad-Blocking in Third-Party Apps

Google, the company behind YouTube, has announced that third-party apps blocking ads while playing YouTube videos are violating its Terms of Service. The company warns that it will soon begin taking action against such apps.

Google offers a variety of APIs that allow developers to integrate YouTube into their apps, play videos, or access data about content hosted on the platform. Some developers have used these APIs to create Android and iOS apps that let users watch YouTube without ads, and many of these apps have millions of users.

Now, Google has stated that all apps using the YouTube API and blocking ads may soon be disconnected from the developer API. The company also warned that users of these apps may start experiencing long buffering times or see the error message “Content is unavailable on this app” when trying to load videos.

According to Google, these measures are intended to protect content creators, as disabling ads directly impacts their earnings. The official YouTube statement reads: “We want to emphasize that our Terms of Service do not allow third-party apps to disable ads, as this prevents creators from being rewarded for their views. Ads on YouTube help support creators and allow billions of people around the world to use the streaming service.”

For those who want to enjoy YouTube without ads, the company offers a Premium subscription, which costs between $13.99 and $18.99 per month depending on the user’s platform.

It’s worth noting that last year, Google began actively countering the use of ad blockers on YouTube. For example, the company introduced a five-second delay when loading the site for users with ad-blocking extensions and, as an experiment, limited such users to just three video views.