Tech for education

After blocking users who use Adblock from the desktop version of YouTube, Google is changing a key Android component, blocking YouTube apps that the company doesn’t approve of. Described as a “global effort” to combat ad-blocking programs (such as AdBlock), the measure first announced for the web version of the service is primarily aimed at securing YouTube’s revenue from advertising, while also “encouraging” as many users as possible to switch to the Premium subscription. Quite predictably, the popularity of Android apps that offer users free ad-free access to YouTube has exploded in recent weeks. And the chosen solution is to modify the WebView Media Integrity API component, normally used to check the integrity of the Android system before allowing access to certain sites. If the API detects that the device is using a modified YouTube app, it will block access to certain features. It is somewhat troubling to see how a legitimate security feature, introduced to help protect users’ personal information when accessing insecure sites on the Internet, is being hijacked to directly serve Google’s interests. It’s also true that Google doesn’t have much choice when it comes to changing YouTube at the server level, any changes made to make it easier to detect extensions and ad-blocking apps could affect compatibility with millions of devices (eg media players and older generation smart TVs), which cannot be updated to the new version of YouTube.