YouTube's Stricter Ad-Measuring Move Against Ad Blockers

TapTechNews June 17th news, the "cat and mouse game" between YouTube and ad blockers seems to never stop. Currently, Google is reportedly testing a stricter measure - attempting to insert ads from the server side, meaning the ads are directly added to the video stream, bypassing the detection mechanism of existing blockers.

According to foreign media AndroidAuthority reported last Saturday, SponsorBlock, a plugin company that can identify and skip "sponsored segments" in videos, said that through this method, YouTube can effectively splice the advertising segments into the video and deliver the entire advertising package to the audience, instead of combining ads from two sources on the browser or App.

This move will make it harder for the ad blocker to identify the start and end positions of the ads, and it may cause damage to the related plugins, as the timestamp of the video will no longer be consistent across all instances in the video (become "flexible").

While in the FAQ, the SponsorBlock team pointed out that this move does not mean the end of the ad blocking tools, although it does become more difficult operationally.

Google later released a statement confirming that it has released updates that may affect ad blocking tools. The statement suggests users to "allow ads on YouTube or try YouTubePremium" to support website creators. The gist of the statement is as follows:

...For users with an ad blocker installed, this update may result in a poor viewing experience. Ad blockers violate YouTube's terms of service, and we have urged users to support their favorite creators by allowing ads on YouTube or trying YouTubePremium for an ad-free experience.

According to TapTechNews' previous reports, last month, YouTube users successively reported that playing videos would automatically jump to the end credits, mainly affecting users who turned on ad blockers. Google's YouTube released a statement through the media 9to5Google, clarifying that this adjustment is only to improve the overall performance and reliability of the platform and has nothing to do with measures to combat ad blockers.