YouTube Starts Cracking Down on Third-Party Ad-Blocking Apps

After YouTube started blocking video playback for desktop users with ad blockers last year, the company has now set its crosshairs on third-party apps that block ads. Yesterday, the company said that these apps were violating its terms of service and preventing content creators from monetizing their content.

“Viewers who are using these third-party apps may experience buffering issues or see the error “The following content is not available on this app” when trying to watch a video,” the YouTube team explained yesterday. “We want to emphasize that our terms don’t allow third-party apps to turn off ads because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership, and Ads on YouTube help support creators and let billions of people around the world use the streaming service.”

While YouTube’s enforcement on third-party apps isn’t really explicit, the announcement is likely targeting mobile apps that let users watch YouTube videos without ads. A popular example was YouTube Vanced, a third-party YouTube app for Android with a built-in ad blocker that was forced by Google to shut down two years ago.

As the YouTube team emphasized again yesterday, there’s a legal way to enjoy YouTube teams without ads, and that’s subscribing to YouTube Premium. At $13.99 per month in the US, YouTube Premium offers an ad-free experience on all videos, as well as the ability to download videos to watch offline, background play on mobile devices, and unlimited music streaming via YouTube Music.