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Windows 10 App Starts Showing Ads, Microsoft Says You Can’t Remove Them
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Windows 10 App Starts Showing Ads, Microsoft Says You Can’t Remove Them [softpedia.com]
Microsoft displaying banners in the official Mail app for Windows 10 is something that we’ve seen in the past, but this time the company has apparently returned with a more aggressive approach.
If the original ad only showed up for insiders as part of what Microsoft described as just a test, the new version is displayed in all instances of the Mail app.
These include not only insiders, but also non-insider devices such as production machines. I’m also seeing the ad on my device running the stable version of Windows 10 version 1909.
The banner shows up in the left sidebar and recommends users to “Get the free Outlook app on your phone.” The weird thing is that the ad is displayed even if the Outlook mobile app is installed on a device where the same email account is configured, as I also use Outlook for Android and Microsoft Launcher on my mobile phone.
Also, the account that I configured in Mail for Windows 10 is Exchange, but the ad is reportedly [mspoweruser.com] enabled for Outlook.com and Gmail accounts as well.
Microsoft: Banner not removable
Clicking the ad gets users to this page [outlook.com] where they are instructed to download Outlook for mobile.
According to the page linked above, Microsoft has already explained that the ad cannot be removed, but the company encourages users to submit feedback on it.
“The ads within the app itself will be displayed regardless of which email address you use it with. It is not removable, but you can submit it as a suggestion within the Feedback Hub on Windows 10 here: https://msft.it/6012TVPXG [msft.it],” the company is quoted as saying.
It’s not hard to imagine that most users wouldn’t agree with ads in their Mail app, so it’ll certainly be interesting to see if Microsoft eventually removes the banner from the app or not.
