Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has come up with something really nasty. It has restricted some of its customers from accessing their email accounts if they have turned on ad blockers. The company has taken this step in support of advertisers as a part of an experiment.
Yahoo mail users in the US
Customers from the US have reported getting messages on their screens asking to turn off their ad blocker setting and are not being able to view their inbox. Although, some users were able to get rid of the messages but others were not. This has led to disappointment among the customers against Yahoo taking such steps.
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has admitted taking these steps intentionally as a part of its US scheme for product testing. But it has still not clearly mentioned whether the pop-up testing will be continued or disabled as a result of customer complaints.
In an attempt to justify its actions, Yahoo explained that only a few of its customers are getting the message on their screens. This is because it was A/B testing the ad blocker detecting technology.
A spokesperson from Yahoo told Engadget that at Yahoo, it is a common practice that they develop and test new product experiences for achieving their set goals. Similarly, this test is being carried out on a small number of Yahoo Mail users in the US.
One of the customers, Andrei Herasimchuk, who is Yahoo’s former Senior Director of Product Design, has planned to move to Apple Mail as a result of Yahoo’s actions. Andrei Herasimchuk wrote on Twitter,” 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.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/Trenti/status/667200354061152256
Yahoo has become the latest brand for restricting access to its website for those who are running the ad blocker. Earlier there were other brand names too who trialed such methods in order to encourage users to disable ad blocker. Some of them were City AM and Washington Post.
CEO of Yavli, the company that develops technology to overturn ad blockers, Tom Yeomans told Digiday that Yahoo is testing this approach, banning ad blocker users from accessing their email services. This is because Yahoo knows if the users want to access their emails within their web browsers, they will have no other option but to disable their ad blocker.
Since Yahoo knows that user’s email account is the only unique thing they have, rest everything like news will be available on other competing websites too.
