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Journalists from the American technology publication The Verge learned that YouTube is "undertaking a global effort" to combat ad blockers (browser extensions that block ads). This was reported to them by YouTube communications manager Christopher Lawton.

Now, when watching a video, many afghanistan whatsapp resource foreign users see a message that video playback is blocked. To return to viewing, you must either subscribe to YouTube Premium or allow advertising to be shown on YouTube.

users back in June 2023. According to Christopher Lawton, the service has been experimenting with restrictions since May 2023, and is now expanding its work. This is due to the fact that the use of blockers violates YouTube's terms of service.

This isn't Google's first attempt to combat ad blockers. A year ago, the company succeeded in banning the YouTube Vanced app, which blocked embedded ads on the site.

When asked why YouTube had not previously so actively restricted blockers, Damir Feyzullov, director of digital & social media at PR Partner communications agency, said that most users watch videos on their phones. An ad blocker is a browser extension, and it cannot be installed in a mobile app. "When a user turns on YouTube on their phone, the traffic goes directly. It is impossible to integrate adblock between the app and YouTube servers," Damir Feyzullov said.

Maria Shiyan, PR manager of the Piarhab agency, believes that YouTube's actions may be part of changes to the service's advertising policy - this year, significant changes have already been made to it. "Perhaps the company has assessed how much profit can grow from users subscribing to YouTube Premium: one of its advantages is precisely the limitation of advertising," said Maria Shiyan.

PR experts believe that YouTube's actions will not affect Russian businesses or ordinary users. In March 2022, YouTube banned Russian audiences from purchasing subscriptions and disabled channel monetization; since then, Russian users can only see ads with a VPN enabled. Advertisers and bloggers have learned to earn money in other ways: through native content or "embedding" ads into videos (however, they can be rewound).

What the law says about blockers and how they affect business

Russian legislation does not prohibit the use of browser extensions. "Blockers work on the user's side, do not interact with the server and cannot be considered malware," explained Kirill Lyakhmanov, chief legal adviser of the intellectual property practice at the EBR law firm and a teacher at the Moscow Digital School educational platform.

He also added that the situation is similar in the European Union. According to Directive 2002/58/EC, a provider can run code on a user's device only if it is necessary to provide the service. "Any attempts by YouTube to determine whether European users have enabled ad blocking tools directly violate the law," said Kirill Lyakhmanov.

"Ad blockers are widespread, and this affects business advertising strategies and platform revenues," said Denis Volkov, CEO of Epicstars.

In Russia, there are pirated sites with video content, the built-in player of which does not allow the video to be launched if AdBlock is enabled in the browser. However, most sites do not ask the user with the browser extension to allow the display of ads. Damir Feyzullov from PR Partner suggests that Russian sites do not block restrictors because they do not know how to do this.

Maria Shiyan from Piarhab suggests that ad blockers are not being combated because of the general attitude towards media products. "People in Russia are not yet so willing to pay for content, there is always a free alternative. Although it is advertising that helps make a product free - essentially, the advertiser pays for the user to see a piece of content along with an advertising message," explained Maria Shiyan.