Tech giant Yahoo has illicted ire from some of its American users after they found they could not access their email accounts. The company was reportedly testing a new feature barring users who have “ad block” software.
Yahoo had the internet in an outrage on Monday following the revelation that while implementing a “test,” users who have ad block software installed in their browsers had been unable to access their email accounts for several days.
Angry users took to Twitter to vent their frustration:
According to an article on Yahoo’s own finance news site, the tech company was “taking a stand” against some of its US users who employ ad blockers on the ad-supported site by testing a feature that prevents these users from accessing their account until they turn the software off.
In a statement to the technology news platform Endgadget, a spokesman for Yahoo offered only this in response: “At Yahoo, we are continually developing and testing new product experiences. This is a test we’re running for a small number of Yahoo Mail users in the US.”
Endgadget also reported the somewhat ironic tweet from Andrei Herasimchuk, who as Yahoo’s one-time Senior Director of Product Design was instrumental in retooling the company’s email service:
Complaints about the ad block lock-out seemed to pertain only to those using Chrome and Firefox, with Yahoo mail users saying they could access their accounts on other browsers.
Yahoo joins a growing list of websites fighting back against ad block software as they depend on revenue from advertisements to finance their operations. Internet users attempting to acess the Washington Post’s website while using the software in September discovered that they were barred from viewing the site and redirected to a subscription page or told to enter their email address to unlock the article they wanted to read.
