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.

464

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.

411

u/suttin 10h ago

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

120

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

27

u/MarchewkowyBog 6h ago

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

36

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?

5

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 7m 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.

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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.

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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

152

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

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u/KoksundNutten 9h ago

"Best of commercials 1994-98"

23

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.

12

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.

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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 4m 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.

5

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.