British Columbians claim YouTube falsely advertises ‘ad-free’ premium services

Three class members say YouTube Premium removes its own ads, but doesn't block the ads included in videos by content creators.VANCOUVER, British Columbia (CN) — When they paid a monthly premium for an ad-free YouTube experience, three British Columbia residents say they got exactly what they paid to avoid.The YouTube Premium subscription, which comes with a CA$12.99 ($9.38) monthly price tag for individuals and CA$22.99 for a family plan, removes all of the ads YouTube itself attaches to content posted on the platform.But while that is billed as an “ad-free” experience with “no interruptions,” Thirumugham Palaniappan, Jason Kooner and Connor MacLeod say in their class action they haven’t gotten a truly ad-free experience.That’s because creators who upload videos to the YouTube platform can include sponsored content within their own videos.The plaintiffs say Google — along with co-defendants Google Canada Corporation and YouTube LLC — “intentionally created a structural loophole in it’s purportedly ad-free service … Although the source and delivery mechanism of the advertisements changed, the commercial interruption experienced by subscribers remained substantially the same.”In the complaint filed Friday in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, the plaintiffs say they signed up for YouTube Premium between 2021 and 2025, and each of them claim the creator-embedded ads were initially relatively infrequent.But in the last couple of years, they say the ads “have proliferated across the YouTube platform and become increasingly frequent and ubiquitous.”Represented by Vancouver-area firm Dusevic & Garcha, the plaintiffs argue there is only a technical difference — who is delivering the ad — between the ads YouTube itself puts on videos and the ads creators themselves include in their videos.“That technical distinction does not alter the nature or effect of the commercial interruption experienced by a YouTube Premium subscriber,” the plaintiffs write.They claim the defendants violated their contract, along with Canada’s Competition Act and British Columbia’s Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act.The plaintiffs note the claim to be ad-free doesn’t come with any carveouts for creator-embedded ads, and the inclusion of those ads devalues the YouTube Premium product. They claim the defendants are unjustly enriched by the purported deception.“Google’s commercial benefit from creator-embedded advertisements includes the subscription revenues it receives and retains and the broader benefits arising from the continued operation and growth of the creator economy on YouTube,” the plaintiffs write.They ask for damages in the form of restitution of the overpayment in the subscription fees, along with an injunction stopping the defendants from advertising YouTube Premium as ad-free without disclosing the creator-embedded ads may still play.The class action follows another filed in July by two California plaintiffs who similarly accuse Google and YouTube of breaking a promise for an ad-free experience.Google and representatives of the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads