New Service Lets Kids Watch YouTube Ad-Free, but There’s a Catch

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YouTube will now allow parents to pay a subscription fee to allow their kids to watch the video streaming website without ads. Wired reports the service will cost $10 per month for ad-free access to the YouTube Kids app. The app, which launched about a year and a half ago, has been quite successful, with more than 10 billion videos watched on an annual basis, according to Wired.

YouTube Kids makes it easy for parents to let their children watch YouTube, with the knowledge that a filter will remove objectionable content. YouTube, which is owned by Google, says it plans to add more filtering options, letting parents block specific channels or videos from their children’s viewing.

Parents groups generally liked the idea of YouTube Kids, but many objected to the ads, which they argued were hard for kids to distinguish from other content. These will be removed by the new ad-free access subscription. What remains are product-placement ads within videos that don’t disclose that the YouTube producer is being paid. YouTube says it will remove such videos from the kids area if it finds out the video maker was paid.

The new subscription service, which basically brings the kids into a YouTube Red-style subscription, could help with the video ads, though it will do little for product placements.

Would you pay $10 a month so your kids aren’t subjected to YouTube’s ads? Let us know in comments below or on our Facebook page.

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