The Microsoft emailing app Outlook has started putting more ads, resembling genuine emails, on mobile devices. A report from The Verge says that the change has been rolling out over the past few months and essentially means Microsoft is making it harder for free users to avoid ads in Outlook mobile.
The Outlook mobile app has two options for organising inbox. There is a single inbox with everything in it and the other is a tabbed inbox. The tabbed inbox is split into two categories, ‘focused’ with important mail and ‘Other’ with all the rest mails. The report says, “whatever inbox mode you use, there’ll be ads somewhere in the mix — either at the top of your Other tab or the top of your regular inbox.”
Redmond- based tech giant has earlier put ads only in the ‘Other’ tab for free users, but since a few months the ads are also appearing in the single-inbox mode. These are like ads shown inside the web versions of Outlook and Gmail.
This makes it harder for free users to avoid ads in Outlook mobile. To avoid ads, it leaves the user with the only option of going for the paid Microsoft 365 subscription.
Confirming the change, Microsoft spokesperson Caitlin Roulston told The Verge that for free users of Outlook, ads are shown in their inbox. The spokesperson said that users can choose to enable the ‘Focused inbox’ feature if they would like to see ads only in the ‘Other’ inbox.
{{/usCountry}}Confirming the change, Microsoft spokesperson Caitlin Roulston told The Verge that for free users of Outlook, ads are shown in their inbox. The spokesperson said that users can choose to enable the ‘Focused inbox’ feature if they would like to see ads only in the ‘Other’ inbox.
{{/usCountry}}The move has triggered backlash on social media platforms as users are confused seeing the ads look like real mail. These email-like ads can be deleted, but only to reappear soon. Clicking on the ads will display advertising content within an in-app browser.
Advertising revenue model is becoming popular among tech giants, they are aggressively pushing for new advertisement spaces. After showing ads in the App Store's Today tab and on individual app pages, it has recently been reported that Apple may soon start showing ads to the iPhone users in its Apple Maps app.
Nobody likes ads but they are inevitable unless one buys the premium subscription, the report states.