this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
414 points (97.9% liked)

Technology

87515 readers
3160 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
414
YouTube Premium Is Not Ad-Free as Advertised, Class Action Lawsuit Claims (www.classaction.org)
submitted 2 weeks ago by beep@piefed.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
65 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1310997/youtube-premium-is-not-ad-free-as-advertised-class-action-lawsuit-claims

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 135 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (43 children)

given that advertisements and interruptions appear frequently during streamed content, including those inserted by the creator.

Nah, this is dumb as fuck. No reasonable person reading the ToS would assume the creators themselves are restricted from inserting sponsored segments and that YouTube is somehow liable for removing them. Where would this even end? Would GamersNexus quickly advertising their t-shirts count?

Seems likely to fail unless YouTube themselves are failing not to insert ads on Premium.

—A religious SponsorBlock user

Edit: So looking at the ToS, if we scroll down to section 7, we see the word "features" hyperlinked to. This page then reads:

With YouTube Premium, you can watch millions of videos without interruptions by ads before and during a video. You will also not see third-party banner ads and search ads.

You may still see branding or promotions embedded in the content by the creator, as well as promotional links, shelves and features in and around the content that are added or enabled by the creator. These links, shelves and features could be for their website, merchandise, membership to their channel, event tickets, or other related destinations that they are promoting. Ads or promotions may also appear on Primetime Channels, during live events streamed on YouTube, such as sporting events.

So unless they just changed it in response to this lawsuit, it categorically addresses it even though a reasonable person would likely understand without this disclaimer.

Edit 2: Just to make sure this wasn't changed in resoonse to the suit. Lawsuit was filed July 14, 2026. This was the ToS page on December 30, 2025, which still includes the link to "Features". Looking at an archive captured Christmas 2025, the features page still states:

You may still see branding or promotions embedded in the content by the creator, as well as promotional links, shelves and features in and around the content that are added or enabled by the creator. These links, shelves and features could be for their website, merchandise, membership to their channel, event tickets, or other related destinations that they are promoting. Ads or promotions may also appear during live events streamed on YouTube, such as sporting events.

Frivolous-ass, lying-ass lawsuit.

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Does YouTube insert their own ads into streamed content on yt premium?

[–] mkwt@lemmy.world 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No. But they do occasionally advertise their TV and movie rental services as videos in the feeds.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 weeks ago

Havent seen that on the TV app and because I use uBlock, I can't comment on the desktop/mobile version of the website

load more comments (40 replies)