YouTube has been experimenting with ways to disable ad blockers for some time now, and now it's targeting its own customers. Specifically, if you used a VPN to purchase YouTube Premium at a lower price than your actual location, Google is after you.
In a statement provided to TechCrunch, the company said the following: “To provide the most accurate plans and offers, we have systems in place to determine the country of our users. In cases where the signup country does not match the country where the user is accessing YouTube, we are asking members to update their billing information to their current country of residence.”
The statement comes after reports of Users posted on Reddit that his YouTube Premium subscription was suddenly cancelled without any warning.
YouTube Premium rates vary depending on your market. For example, while the service costs $13.99 in the US, in India it costs as little as $1.54 per month.
Redditors who contacted customer service said agents told them their plans were canceled because they had “moved” to a different area. U.K.-based Redditor Those who signed up for YouTube Premium with a Ukrainian IP address said they were told they would have to sign up for a new plan with a UK card, increasing their payment from £2.30/month to £12.99 per month.
“It's confirmed that this is a crackdown on cheap VPN subscriptions,” the Redditor wrote. “Oops…”
YouTube has not explicitly confirmed whether it has cancelled subscriptions due to using a VPN at sign-up, though the company has said it has cancelled subscriptions due to using a VPN at sign-up. Told to PCMag It has “started cancelling premium subscriptions for accounts with incorrect signup country information.”
The move to force people to pay full price for Premium comes after a months-long campaign against ad blocking. YouTube Premium also offers additional services, including video downloads and access to YouTube Music Premium.