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YouTube Premium Is Not Ad-Free as Advertised, Class Action Lawsuit Claims
(www.classaction.org)
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this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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You can't advertise one thing and then just add "nah j/k" in the ToS and think you're off the hook
The lawsuit tries to claim that the terms of service reinforce this, when in reality, they directly contradict this already-bad-faith interpretation of what Google advertises. "Restrictions apply" is extremely normal for any advertisement and is effective in negating claims of false advertising provided they clarify what a reasonable person could plausibly already assume.
Come back to me when Flemming et al. win this lawsuit. Even a token settlement, come back and rub it in my face. I encourage you, because I won't be wasting the time to keep up with this doomed nonsense.
It’s not bad faith. No ads means no ads not no ads* well actually. No reasonable person would expect ads in the middle of their ad free content. Regular people shouldn’t have to know the intricacies of how YouTube creators get paid to understand what ad free means. No ads means no damned ads.
I don't have strong opinions but it looks like they're referring to this phrasing in the ToS which suggests ads will only appear in sporting events. That's the ToS connection. But otherwise, they advertise YouTube as an ad free experience which just isn't true.
Edit: Oh, I see, you meant in the ToS themselves. But it clearly links directly and unambiguously to the 'features' page right at the start of the section.
Can a company market a submarine but then define a submarine as a lamp in their ToS and you'd just be out of luck?
I haven't read the case, but you seem to be coming from a place of "the terms absolve them" when the suit may be more about false advertising?
I am a premium subscriber and don't get a lot of ads, but I have also noticed some UX changes recently that do indeed seem kinda dark pattern/marketing-ish.
I will be mildly watching this hoping for that sweet $2.37 settlement check....
No, because a ToS can't cure an obviously false advertisement, but when looking at what a reasonable consumer would take away from the advertisement, you can see the ToS is clarifying what a reasonable person would already assume – namely that MrBeast, before sending 42 junior high students to fight to the death in a chocolate factory, spending 45 seconds raving about how much he loves to put Hello Kitty-branded capsaicin under his foreskin isn't something that YouTube Premium is going to get rid of.
You seem very emotional about this while.claiming to not care.
I don't feel you answered my question on if your criticisms apply - is this about the ToS or about their marketing?
Ianal, but I believe laws like this usually have a "reasonable expectation" component to them. Imo, ad free means Google isn't injecting their own ads before or during videos, with the exception of ads during live events. I believe they have lived up to that and more with the built in functionality to detect and skip creator ads. I think the explicit writing in the ToS further defends their position, but by itself isn't a definitive defense. So I think the prosecution has to somehow convince a judge that they were actually deceived by the whole package, the marketing and defend against the very clearly stated section in the ToS. That to me is a tall order and I think Google wins.
I claim not to care to keep up with this after this thread because it's obviously doomed. I do, however, care enough to debunk it when it's shared on Lemmy like it has any chance of success.
I don't understand how you got "emotional" from my last comment where all I did was make a matter-of-fact statement followed by a joke about MrBeast CBT.
Is the lawsuit regarding the marketing of the product or the functionality of the product?
I think you might be emotional because you keep ignoring the thing I am asking to discuss stuff I am not.
The marketing, to which Google is going to obviously and correctly respond that:
I'll repeat what I think you already saw in another comment: I'd love to have it shoved in my face when a judge or jury actually buys this (I'd assume plaintiffs would request a jury and the defendants would not) and Flemming et al. see a dime.
Just to add to this... some of the videos on YouTube are actual full ads. The content itself is an ad, so what should Google do? Ban YouTube Premium users from watching those videos? (I'm thinking like old Superbowl ads)
I don't see how Google could possibly make a determination of what is and isn't an ad, when Sponsor Block can barely figure out the categories. I doubt we could expect creators to self-identity sponsored segments, and I could easily see that system being abused.
People get really creative with their sponsors sometimes, doing entire skits to try and get you to keep watching. There's no clear way to determine what an ad even is when it's uploaded by the creator.
We used to have a ftc that gave a shit about this. Now yall have lost the plot. If you’re being fucking paid to promote a product that’s a fucking ad. I don’t give a fuck if you made a movie for it. There should be massive sponsored banners right the entire sponsored ad.
I'll literally watch Map Men sponsor segments on purpose (along with a few others)
Youtube Premium has YouTube remove the ads that they have control over. YouTube only has control of the ads that they add to the uploaded video, on either end or mid-rolls. They do not have control of the video content itself which is where creators add their own sponsorship stuff.
We really want YouTube to have unilateral control to determine what is and isn't an ad, and to remove sponsored advertising that they are not a part of in uploaded content? Something that would also clearly be a conflict of interest as they are an advertising partner.
Forcing them to label adsegements and autoskipping them is possible and protects consumers from shadow ads that are increasingly more common nowadays.
Still that is not what I expect from YouTube premium.
Technically the "often skipped" section is the sponsored content.
But I suspect this is fed through user behaviour and not content detection
It's also not mandatory labeling of ads. Which YouTube could force on their creating users and should for consumer protection.
And they have tools available to mark the video as "sponsored"
I don't think anyone want youtube to remove the ads. They just want Youtube to advertise honestly. If it can't remove all ads, don't advertise completely ad-free videos.
If you go to YouTube to watch a commercial (here is an example for Orangina https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrkUDm9pnIw), should the whole video be blocked? YouTube provide a video hosting service and they add commercials on top of that.
I find it unreasonable to demand that YouTube essentially remove content from within the video. That would just end back in the EU "protect-the-children"-Chat Control area of the debate. You could have uploaders mark their videos as containing marketing (and perhaps they do) but enforcement would still be difficult given the sheer volume of videos.
I already wrote no one is demanding they remove all ads. But they can't describe premium as "removes all ads".
No one reasonable will demand I sell them the statue of liberty. I can't do that. But I am still not allowed to advertise that I have Statue of Liberty for sale. The issue isn't youtube not removing these ads. The issue is they claimed they would for premium.
I always understood "removes all ads" and removing all ads placed in their product by them. With this understanding, I think asking them to remove all ads would mean to in some way enforce uploaders to not have ads in their videos if you are showing them to a premium user.
But I can understand how someone else interprets "removes all ads" as delivering an experience free from all ads of any kind, including those placed in the video by uploaders.
That's called content moderation.
Well, it is what it says on the label. Sure, you may have enough knowledge to understand it is impossible, but some people being able to spot a scam doesn't make it less of a scam. And it doesn't mean the people who don't know that much about how youtube works and get scammed should be unable to sue.
YouTube also provides a pretty handy tool for getting past those. There's a DOT located right where the sponsored section of any YouTube video ends that you can fast forward right to.