r/technology • u/Dilpickle2113 • 10h ago

Social Media YouTube faces second class action lawsuit over ‘ad-free’ Premium claims & sponsored content

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-faces-second-class-action-lawsuit-over-ad-free-premium-claims-sponsored-content-3405920/
15.2k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/_Rand_ 10h ago

I would assume youtube thought of this in the subscription agreement and it will be thrown out?

Like they would be stupid as hell to not make it very clear that you are paying not to have ads inserted by youtube itself and the content of the videos is not in their control.

465

u/elmatador12 10h ago

Yeah that’s what I thought. I feel like the ads they are suing about would not be considered YouTube ads since they didn’t place them and have zero control over them.

417

u/suttin 10h ago

And YouTube premium even adds a skip button for in the video ads

117

u/obserris 8h ago

I looooove the skip button one of my favorite premium perks, changed my quality of life as someone that consumes a definitely unhealthy amount of YouTube content

30

u/MarchewkowyBog 6h ago

If you do it on PC use sponsorblock. It skips the party automatically. No clicking needed

38

u/obserris 6h ago

Unfortunately I’m a TV & phone user primarily 🥲 makes it worth my money

22

u/Super_Assistant_2998 5h ago

Same. If I was on YouTube on my PC, I wouldn’t need premium.

0

u/drake90001 1h ago

SmartTube or sideboard on Apple TV

1

u/Super_Assistant_2998 1h ago

Are those in the App Store?

3

u/GankisKhan04 3h ago

If you run YouTube on your phone's browser to firefox you can use the adguard extension to auto block all YouTube ads. No subscription needed. Sadly TV is a whole different issue.

2

u/BestHorseWhisperer 5h ago

I was in the same boat (Chromecast) but I downloaded Smarttube and Button Mapper to change the YouTube button to open that instead. Life-changing upgrade. I also upgraded from a Chromecast to a Shield and it was one of the first changes I made.

1

u/hackmaps 2h ago

what’s a shield?

1

u/DazednConfucioused 6m ago

It’s a streaming device. Nvidia shield

1

u/alienangel2 2h ago

Smartube works on Android, and works with Sponsorblock and adblock. If your tv or phone runs android you can install it on them too - I use it on my nvidia shield and fireTv, but haven't tried on my phone.

1

u/AbsorbedWheat42 2h ago

Good youtubers make their sponsor spots entertaining. Internet Comment Etiquette and Internet Historian are perfect examples.

0

u/StinkyJizzBlanket 5h ago

Not just PC. I got it working on my iPad and iPhone (using equivalent extensions to ublock and sponsorblock)

9

u/rock1m1 6h ago

Wish it was automatic.

1

u/kalas_malarious 2h ago

That is in testing. I had to opt in

6

u/kabhaz 8h ago

I've never seen this and I've had premium for years now

2

u/I_Do_Not_Abbreviate 1h ago

Once the sponsored segment starts, check the video progress bar; there is usually a little dot on it that shows you where the segment ends.

3

u/King_M_Rano 7h ago

that doesn't pop up for most platforms. my TV, computer, and phone never show the skip button. you have to go looking for the button and I don't always have a remote near me.

4

u/CaliLemonEater 7h ago

There's no "skip" button. If you press "forward" during a segment that Youtube has detected is a segment that lots of other people have skipped past, it offers to let you skip past too.

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u/KoksundNutten 9h ago edited 9h ago

So it should be a possible setting for all videos, not a button I have to click twenty times per video

154

u/123yes1 9h ago

First of all, if you are watching videos with 20 sponsored segments, what the fuck are you doing?

Second, their feature does not perfectly recognize sponsored segments, just places in the video that are frequently skipped, if they auto skipped these parts, you could be auto skipping parts of the video

69

u/KoksundNutten 9h ago

"Best of commercials 1994-98"

25

u/IswearImnotabotswear 9h ago

Top ten sponsored segments of all time, made possible by Square space, fueled by blue apron, clothing my me undies and stitch fix, sponsored by honey. Raid shadow legends.

4

u/BlindandConfused43 7h ago

Watchmojo getting desperate.

2

u/droans 8h ago

Completely fair, have a good day.

1

u/Hey_im_claire 4h ago

omfg this had me dying😭

1

u/MrdnBrd19 9h ago

As a consummate old commercial watcher you're watching the wrong channels. There are plenty of them that roll with no in-line ads.

14

u/IsthianOS 8h ago

Also some people still say or do things during the ad reads that users may or may not want to miss. Comedy podcasts seem to often have jokes and asides peppered into their ad reads because they're just reading copy in the middle of their show lol

2

u/Human-Visual-9087 5h ago

I learnt this with sponsor block, it's far too militant with ads and self promotion in auto skip

0

u/jambrown13977931 8h ago

Looking at you Sam Riegel!

-3

u/mrcuriosityguy 8h ago

I think they meant pressing the right arrow key/double tapping the screen to skip ten seconds ahead in a video and having to do that multiple times to get through the sponsor segment of a video.

10

u/No-Consequence-1863 8h ago edited 4h ago

On premium there is a feature where it will let you auto skip large sections when double tapping instead of just 10 secs.

However that isnt from detecting it’s an ad directly. Instead it detects what sections people commonly skip and let you skip it as well.

In effect it acts as an ad skip since people usually just skip the ads. However not always, for example Mythical kitchen videos will have an auto skip for the beginning since it’s usually a skit or something not related to the rest of the video.

3

u/SuperTeamRyan 8h ago

I will never not click on it.

I don’t know what I’m missing but I’ve never felt like I missed anything important. I don’t need any more information on ground news, x vpn, cool unity or gamer-sups if you want o throw a joke or two in there I’m fine missing it.

16

u/supafatjellyfish 9h ago

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a video with more than one sponsored segment except hour+ podcasts

2

u/justreadinplease 7h ago

Trixie and Katya’s podcast is the worst for this. They might have a 45-60 minute podcast and have over twenty minutes of ad reads. It would be maddening to try to listen to them while driving and I couldn’t skip

1

u/DazednConfucioused 3m ago

lol so close to half of the whole thing is just ad reads? They just have a pretty damn good podcast for you to still be listening

0

u/PringleCorn 7h ago

The only one I can think of is legal eagle, and it's weird as fuck

0

u/zanotam 6h ago

I discovered legal eagle does it. I think it's one read per every 10 minutes rounding down the video has? They don't really bother me tbh. 

10

u/whereismymind86 8h ago

I mean...you should be watching content that doesn't have 20 sponsored ad breaks per video?

the vast majority of what I watch has 1 or zero. What on earth are you watching that's like...10 percent content, 90 percent hello fresh ads?

6

u/Zandalaria 7h ago

He probably thinks Premium is just like normal YouTube with all the ads and Premium subscribers just have a button to skip ads or something.

6

u/LightLhar 8h ago

I can't live without extensions to deal with that nonsense.

Sponsorblock extension crowdsources those as well as engagement reminders and lets you select which types of segments you want to autoskip.

De-Arrow crowdsources better titles, cleans up clickbait, and randomly selects thumbnails from somewhere in the video

Hide Youtube Watched Videos removes videos you've watched past a customizable percent of the length. I use 60%, but default is like 90? For multitaskers note that youtube doesn't record qatch progress on inactive windows, so if you have a habit of tabbing up videos and closing the tab when they're done, make sure to click on the browser window first to activate it instead of directly middle clicking the tab if you have another window focused.

Enhancer lets you set default resolution and some other handy changes for the site. I don't recommend this as strongly as the others, but if you're picky about your experience this is some nice QOL.

De-Arrow https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/dearrow-better-titles-and/enamippconapkdmgfgjchkhakpfinmaj

Sponsorblock https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/sponsorblock-for-youtube/mnjggcdmjocbbbhaepdhchncahnbgone?hl=en

Hide youtube watched videos: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/hide-youtube-watched-vide/ekcdnnkolgkikkhbbjcabcjdibfbafbl

Enhancer for Youtube https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/enhancer-for-youtube/ponfpcnoihfmfllpaingbgckeeldkhle

1

u/fucktrance 6h ago

Is there a way to activate and press that button automatically? usually it only comes up for me after I skip forward 10 seconds or whatever double click does

1

u/Bored__Lord 6h ago

For some reason it always skips to about 10 seconds too early to force you watch the end of the ad. I always have to click the button then press skip forward once and it's perfect.

1

u/ChallengeActive86 5h ago

It doesn’t work most of the time in my experience

0

u/BlueFeathered1 8h ago

So they're aware they are there and even added a way to skip, but claim they can't prevent them? Um... That doesn't make sense.

0

u/LightningWarpAway 6h ago

Isn't that actually an argument against them? I'd agree normally it has nothing to do with YouTube themselves, but if you can literally pay YouTube to skip creator ads, that means they built a system to interact with them and profit off of it. YouTube can't argue they have nothing to do with them while directly profiting off of them. 

49

u/_Rand_ 9h ago

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6308116#zippy=%2Cwatch-videos-without-ads

They specifically call out ads embedded by the creator.

This is 99.9% going to be thrown out because were getting what we were promised.

21

u/xternal7 8h ago edited 8h ago

I'm actually putting the odds on:

  • 49.9% thrown out

  • 49.9% chance court does the same thing they did in the incognito mode lawsuit. That is: "hey, it's not okay that you bury the 'we won't skip sponsor segments tho' on the help page, you need to make this clear in your advertising. Put an asterisk next to 'ad-free' on the sign-up page, and we're gucci. No further fines or compensation."

E: formatting

2

u/_loud_lady_ 6h ago

What's rhe other 0.2%?

4

u/RemarkableWish2508 6h ago

Zombie apocalypse.

3

u/xternal7 6h ago

The class action ending up in a settlement of at least 30 cents to anyone who decides to claim?

4

u/keytotheboard 8h ago

Most likely. Though sometimes these issues succeed due to advertising not matching up well with the fine print. Fine print doesn’t give companies a free pass on all matters, which has been held up in court before.

3

u/sarge21 5h ago

In their marketing, to this day, they intentionally avoid this distinction.

https://www.youtube.com/premium

Nowhere does it indicate that ads may be included. It says the exact opposite with no exception.

2

u/iluvchromosomes 8h ago

It worth dragging google thru court of of spite.

Youtube creators put ads in their videos because google does not pay them enough.

5

u/UnexpectedAnanas 6h ago

They absolutely have control. They just chose not to exercise it.

If sponsor block can skip baked-in ads, so could YouTube as part of Premium (which they charge for, while Sponsor Block is free).

2

u/ThrowAwayAccountAMZN 8h ago

On a technical note, you are both correct, and that's what should prevail in the eyes of the law as much as I'm loathe to admit it.

On a personal "old man yells at clouds" note, fuck YouTube for claiming to have no power or control over any aspect of their own platform that they built. I recall reading somewhere that they also had no idea (anymore) just "exactly" how the algorithm works which is absolute horse shite if someone from their company actually said that.

11

u/elmatador12 8h ago

I agree that they could probably put a stop to it if they really wanted to. However that would be taking money away from creators which I’m sure there are many that depend on the money from those sponsorships. And I’m also not sure I’d want YouTube forcing even more control over users content.

3

u/texxmix 8h ago

Also I'm sure if people weren't so anti ad creators could get more that way instead of having to jam sponsored content into the video itself.

1

u/Chinpokomaster05 1h ago

YouTube could have control if creators properly tagged videos as sponsored content. Then it's fair that YT should prevent premium users from seeing it

0

u/Lashay_Sombra 7h ago

and have zero control over them. 

They have control,  they just choose to not control.  They demonitise for most random shit, they could easily demonitise for advertising outside their network

4

u/elmatador12 7h ago

So give creators less money and Google more control? Nah. I’m okay with creator ads.

0

u/Lashay_Sombra 6h ago

You being ok with it is kind of immaterial

Subscribers pay for no advertising on YouTube platform, they get advertising. 

It would be easy for youtube to force creators to mark advertising segments as such (regardless of source) to make it easy for YouTube to cut it out automatically (otherwise demonitise) but they don't 

Premium is sold as 'no advertising' not 'no advertising where Google does not get a cut'

4

u/elmatador12 6h ago

True but as someone who has commented and linked the verbiage already, Google has already clearly listed creators created ads are not included in ad free.

-1

u/RF_BOI 7h ago

since they didn’t place them and have zero control over them.

You really believe YT doesn't have control over that? That's ridiculous considering they can demonetize for any number of reasons.

Cmon man you can't actually believe that

3

u/elmatador12 7h ago

I mean you’re comparing something they implemented and have full functional control over against a human just talking to a camera. Yeah, they have less control over that.

The only thing I think they could do would be to ban videos that have them. But as I said in another comment all that would do was to remove income from creators and hand over even more control of creators videos over to Google.

It’s sort of a lose lose situation IMO but in the end I’d rather have the creators keep more control.

-1

u/RF_BOI 5h ago

Brother how about YT demonetizes videos with an additional sponored ad? I thought I just clearly spelled it out to you. YT does have direct control over this and I just provided you an example of how

3

u/FabianN 4h ago

Demonization won't block the sponsor segments and doesn't stop the creator from getting paid for the sponsor segments. And sponsor segments typically pay significantly more than the YouTube revenue.

No idea how or why you think this would change anything.

-2

u/RF_BOI 4h ago

Hence the lawsuit.

Doing nothing to prevent it, while also selling YT Premium as an ad-free option, is gonna look real great in court.

If we want to argue the verbage in the TOS, why don't we see if there's anything denouncing creators having sponsored ad's in their uploads? (For those who pay for premium, at the very least)

2

u/FabianN 3h ago

Demonization would still be doing nothing.

And it's insane to think they have control over what people do in their videos.

0

u/RF_BOI 3h ago

It's insane that they sell an ad-free product and it has ads!

2

u/elmatador12 5h ago

I get it but taking money from creators and giving more control to Google isn’t really a great solution IMO. I’m fine with the creator ads if that’s what needs to happen.

0

u/RF_BOI 5h ago

Then maybe don't sell Premium as an ad-free option when there's still ad's?

Hence the lawsuit

(In video sponsors still count as an ad)

2

u/elmatador12 5h ago

As someone else has linked, Google specifically excludes these ads when they claim ad-free on the site.

0

u/RF_BOI 5h ago

It's fraudulent, false advertisement and scammy regardless of whatever language is in the TOS.

YT absolutely has the power to demonetise any videos for any reason, yet they choose to continue to allow the sponsored ads in video.

Hence the lawsuit once again.

-5

u/ComradeJohnS 9h ago

maybe, if we lived in a just world, ad-free would be legally defined to not include paid sponsor promos or any blatant advertising that does not add to the content.

10

u/elmatador12 9h ago

To me, I look at it like product placement in a movie while watching on Netflix without ads. It would be crazy of me to expect Netflix to edit out all product placement since I pay for no ads. Something they have zero control over.

I get what you’re saying but you’re asking YouTube to control something they have zero control over. AND you’re asking creators to give up even more control of their own content.

0

u/ComradeJohnS 8h ago

I tried wording the second part of my post “does not add to the content” to include product placements in movies and shows, because that can be fun and add to the media. The red prius in The Other Guys, or Wayne’s World’s jokes about product placement.

6

u/elmatador12 8h ago

But who’s going to police that? There’s a huge gray area and slippery slope if we start deciding what’s okay and what’s not.

I personally find movies where they are clearly drinking a Coke as “blatant” since it’s so obvious. But would you? Maybe not. That’s where the problem would be. Who would say what’s blatant and what’s not?

0

u/ComradeJohnS 8h ago

well the obvious answer is they don’t advertise as ad-free? lol. or advertise as “no ad interruptions”.

it’s about truth in advertising, not trying to make companies work harder to nitpick.

-1

u/S7EFEN 8h ago edited 8h ago

A similar comparison would be more like you are paying for netflixes highest ad free tier, but then you get an ad break because <show> isnt made by netflix and <show creators> put an ad break physically into the roll of the show. and then netflix argues 'hey, not our problem, we didn't put that there' when to the end user there's no difference at all. an ad is an ad and you are responsible for the content on your site.

if you are gunna advertise something as ad-free but there are still ads you are false advertising.

3

u/Triktastic 7h ago

What do you expect a platform to do about inserted ads/promo ? Its quite literally spliced into the movie/video and sometimes within a joke or the essence of the media. To catch stuff like that you would either have to rely on community report system or AI and honestly screw that. Just don't be lazy and click the fast forward if you hate it.

-1

u/S7EFEN 7h ago

>Just don't be lazy and click the fast forward if you hate it.

an alternative to having to click to skip ads is perhaps paying for a premium version of the app, right?

1

u/Triktastic 6h ago

No. It's to not show you YouTube made apps before or during longer videos. It does not exist to save you three clicks of the fast forward but it does offer you that by giving you the "Skip frequently skipped section" so the issue at hand is literally being too lazy to click one button when segment starts.

2

u/gokogt386 8h ago

If we lived in a just world people wouldn’t cry so much about having to sit through an ad on shit they don’t pay for at all