Yahoo Mail is testing a program that forces users to look at ads.
Last week, a select group of users using ad blocker software on Chrome and Firefox were blocked from accessing their accounts by a message that said, “Please disable Ad Blocker to continue using Yahoo Mail.”
Over the weekend, a spokesman told Endgadget the program is experimental, saying, “Yahoo is continually developing and testing new product experiences.” He added, “This is a test we’re running for a small number of Yahoo Mail users in the US.”
The experiment has been so obstructive that Andrei Herasimchuk, Yahoo’s former senior director of product design, complained on Twitter. “So Yahoo Mail has blocked my inbox for using an ad blocker,” Herasimchuk said. “It was a good run, I guess. Goodbye! Hello Apple Mail, as much as I hate it.”
So @YahooMail has blocked my inbox for using an ad blocker. It was a good run, I guess. Goodbye! Hello Apple Mail, as much as I hate it.
— Andrei Herasimchuk (@Trenti) November 19, 2015
Yahoo and other avenues of online communication like Apple, Facebook and Google scan the contents of messages sent or received by users in order to personalize and target their advertising. Yet unlike those companies, Yahoo has been experiencing a decline in its number of users, and its third quarter report released in October fell short of expectations.
Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission ruled against a petition that sought to force tech companies to respect the wishes of users who request not to be tracked. The petition was directed most notably at Google and Facebook, which lurk quietly in the background as users browse the web, regardless of the settings that users enable.
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To date, no major company has implemented a prohibition on ad blockers. Yahoo would be the first to do so if it takes the program out of the trial phase.
