YouTube Steps Up Ad-Blocker Crackdown: Is It Making A Difference?

YouTube, Alphabet Inc‘s GOOGL GOOG video streaming platform, is reportedly experimenting with new ways to prevent rampant ad-blocking on the platform.

What Happened: SponsorBlock, a crowdsourced Google Chrome extension designed to bypass sponsored content, reported on YouTube’s latest crackdown in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

YouTube is reportedly experimenting with server-side ad injection, a method to prevent ad-blocking overrides like SponsorBlock. The platform will insert ad-related material directly into the video stream instead of on top of the video stream.

Another method for users to enjoy YouTube content without ads is to pay for the platform’s YouTube Premium, a $14 per month subscription in the United States. PCMag reported on Thursday that YouTube was cracking down on users utilizing VPNs to artificially change their country of origin, taking advantage of lower subscription costs (around $2.40 per month) in countries such as Ukraine.

Why it Matters: While Google has attempted to limit ad-blocking in recent months, it has been somewhat unsuccessful thus far; extensions such as SponsorBlock continue to hide advertisements.

Google is fundamentally an advertising business, as ad revenue from Search and YouTube accounts for more than half of the company’s sales. Meanwhile, users have complained that the platform has added too many ads, many unskippable, in recent years.

A crackdown on the widespread usage of ad-blockers could drive revenue for the California-based tech giant. Given that YouTube is by far the pre-eminent online video-sharing platform, it is unlikely that users will migrate elsewhere.

Price Action: Alphabet traded at $180.09, up 2.15% at the time of writing.

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