
January 13, 2013
Is YouTube Allowing Accidental Ad Clicks By Design?
Like many creatures of the web, I've been known to watch YouTube videos every now and then. For the last year or so, I've noticed something strange going on with Google's advertising approach within YouTube. Initially, I just thought I was witnessing a mistake that their developers made, and I waited to see when they'd fix the issue. To my surprise, that day never came - so today, I'm going to describe the problem, as I perceive it. Let's start with a screenshot: An example of the pre-roll ads that appear on YouTube, with a countdown. Notice the message to the bottom right? It says "you can skip to video in," and then has a countdown, in seconds. There's nothing wrong with such an approach…