YouTube Cracking Down on Unauthorized Product Placements

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 4, 2009 - 9:16am.

New York - YouTube is reaching out to popular video producers who have secured product placement deals for their videos, to remind them that according to its terms of service, such commercial videos are prohibited without permission, Mediaweek reported.

Google (NASD: GOOG) itself sells advertising against the videos uploaded to YouTube, and views this user-secured form of advertising as competition.

"We have a policy, and if we discover they are embedding stuff we will definitely let them know," Tom Pickett, YouTube's director of online sales and operations, told Mediaweek.

"It's not unreasonable," Kevin Nalty, aka producer of the popular "nalts" videos on YouTube, told Mediaweek.

"They are paying these high bandwidth fees, and they don't want to be seen just as a dumb pipe."

The article goes on to cite some producers who feel YouTube is inconsistent in its application of this particular term of service, sometimes not providing any promotion for videos that feature product placement.

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/hcr6a (Mediaweek)

http://www.youtube.com/user/nalts