Windows 10 Mail App Could Get Ads In The Future

If you use the Windows 10 Mail app just because you don’t want to put up with ads that you see from your email provider online, they might eventually follow you to the app as well. According to reports, Microsoft briefly ran a test in which it served advertisements within the Windows 10 mail app.

Aggiornamenti Lumia reports that the beta version of the Windows 10 Mail app did place ads at the very top of the inbox. This persisted for a few days before Microsoft removed the ads. The company says that it was an experiment.

The ads were apparently served to non-Office 365 subscribers who were using the Mail app in Windows 10 to access their email. A FAQ page on Microsoft’s support website mentions that it was running a pilot program to test ads in Mail. The test was conducted in Canada, Australia, India, and Brazil.

It also mentioned that the ads were served on Windows Home and Windows Pro but not Windows Enterprise or Windows EDU. They were shown to non-work account holders that were set up through Mail, even third-party accounts such as Gmail and Yahoo. The page has been archived but Microsoft has removed it from its website.

Microsoft’s head of communications Frank Shaw later tweeted that the ads inside Mail were “an experimental feature that was never intended to be tested broadly” and that they have now been turned off completely. Whether or not the company will decide to bring them back in the future remains to be seen. One thing’s clear, though, it has certainly thought about doing so.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: Microsoft, Windows 10