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YouTube Shows Adblock Plus Users an Error Message Instead of Ads

Posted by timothy on from the you-seem-to-have-forgotten-your-eyeball-peeler dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Do you use YouTube with Adblock Plus? Some users have been getting the following message instead of ads: "An error occurred. Please try again later." The error message is only shown for the duration of the ad, meaning Adblock Plus is still technically getting the job done. But adblocking extensions typically block ads as well as remove them: For banner ads that means gaining back screen real estate on the webpage while for videos that means the content starts playing right away.

11 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Time shifting by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you extrapolate the arms race out, I can see victory being that you time-shift the video while the ad-blocker lets the ad play to /dev/null.

    They can't force me to watch the ads, because they can't force me to watch their content. I would give up their content before watching ads, the same way as I don't watch teevee with ads. But as long as they want it to be freely available, they can only temporarily frustrate the ad blockers.

    1. Re:Time shifting by slashping · · Score: 3, Informative

      Turn down the volume, switch to another tab for a minute, return to first tab and rewind to start of real video. Or just stop watching.

    2. Re:Time shifting by slashping · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sites that are that anal about you *seeing* the ads will often want to show you an ad AGAIN if you rewind.

      In that case, the last part of my comment applies: just stop watching. There's plenty of other stuff to do.

  2. Only a matter of time by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is only a matter of time before Google tried to stop adblocking on Youtube. They were just waiting for Youtube to get all the marketshare. Next they will try to crack down on copyright violations. They didn't try too hard while they were trying to get all the marketshare.

    1. Re:Only a matter of time by shawn2772 · · Score: 5, Informative

      They hardly even scratch the surface of copyright violations. Go look for any album on Youtube, they are all there and have been there for years. They just don't care.

      Google doesn't care, the copyright owners do. They care a lot, and they make Google handle it. If the copyright owners were unhappy with those albums being there, they would be taken down. But they're okay with it because they have agreements in place, so Google sends the copyright owner a piece of the ad revenue. All of this is automated so you can upload any random music video and odds are very good that it will stay up... but various restrictions will be applied to comply with the agreements.

      For example, I made a tribute video for my mother in law's funeral recently, and used three songs that she loved as the soundtrack. I uploaded it to YouTube to make it easy to share with the extended family, and if I go look at it in my video manager, I note that it is flagged as "not eligible for monetization" and "blocked in some countries". If I click on it to get details, I find that Google has automatically identified the songs in it, and their owners, and applied rules based on agreements with those owners. Specifically, one of the songs in monetized by the copyright owner, which is why I can't make money off of it (not that I care, or that there would be any money to be made) and two others are blocked in Germany because Google doesn't have agreements with the copyright owners in that jurisdiction. Oh, and my video also apparently can't be played on set top boxes, again because Google's licensing agreements don't cover that usage.

      So, your perception that all of that music on YouTube is somehow sliding under the radar and that Google will "crack down" in the future is completely wrong. It isn't "under the radar" at all, and Google not only does "crack down" on copyrighted content that may be infringing, but has the cracking thoroughly automated. But, Google has arranged such comprehensive licenses that you don't notice because it seems like everything is there.

  3. Re:Whelp, no more YouTube for me by garcia · · Score: 4, Informative

    uBlock Origin is still working just fine. I suggest you move away from ABP immediately and shift over to something which hasn't, yet, been corrupted by the industry.

  4. Re:uBlock Origin master race by Z00L00K · · Score: 3

    Most likely it depends on which block rules that you use, not the AdBlock plug-in itself.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  5. Re:Whelp, no more YouTube for me by hjf · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ublock Origin on Firefox. I get the error message.

  6. Re:Or you could pay for the service. by hjf · · Score: 3, Informative

    "YouTube Red is not currently available in Argentina".
    If youtube doesn't care about offering their paid service in my country, it means they don't want my money. If they don't want my money, then I won't see their ads either.

    Fuck google.

  7. Not just adblock by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It doesn't matter which adblocker you use or which browser you use. I've been following this story closely, and this is what I've learned:

    Whether or not you get this error (which lasts as long as an advertisement, by the way) depends on how many ads your YouTube account has blocked recently. For example, if you log out of your YouTube account you won't get the error. If you switch to a Google (or YouTube) account that you haven't used in a while, you won't get the error. And if a couple of days later you log back in with the original account, you won't get the error. But if you watch a bunch of videos with ads that get blocked, the error will start again.

    And yes, it doesn't matter which adblocking software you use. uBlock users are reporting the error as well. YouTube support has basically said, "This is happening because of something we did, but it wasn't intentional. And since it wasn't intentional, we're not going to do anything about it, so you'll have to contact your adblocker's support."

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  8. Re:uBlock Origin master race by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I use Adblock Plus and don't see any ads or errors on Youtube. I use uBlock Origin on a different computer, not seeing ads or errors there either.