Anyone with any knowledge about this. Considering purchasing YT Premium Family, My wife resides at the same address but travels to other Countries will she still be able to use her premium acct? No commercials etc appreciate your advice or suggestions.

I've been locked out of my premium family account for the second time now. Their new policy is that every member has to physically be in the same location as the manager. We all live together so I was confused. Went to support who told me that they send out location checks "randomly every 30 days or so". Or so? Who believes that crap? They're tracking you constantly. Support told me that they track your IP. That means they can check your location whenever without having to notify you or ask your permission. So when these checks come in randomly and the manager is at work, they will flag that you're at a different IP and lock you out of a service you paid $21.99 plus tax for. They also check your IP on Google as well, not just YouTube. So if you're traveling you'll also be flagged and locked out. This is invasion of privacy and a scam. Fuck YouTube and FUCK Google. Greedy to no end.

As many people have noted here, YouTube recently cracked down on Family Plan Premium Memberships where the five family members did not live in the same building, with Premium benefits being "paused" permanently. For some cancelled subscribers, the family members were their actual biological families but who live in other locations; for others (such as myself) the "family" merely consisted of five random people who mutually agreed to form a "household" and share the cost of Family Premium Plan.

However, no one seems to know how restrictive the new geolocation requirements are. Some people claim the cancellations only hit "Families" where the members were spread out across multiple nations -- but if all "Family members" were in the same nation, then it was OK. Others speculate that it is more on a regional basis -- such that (for example) is you were all in the same US state, then the memberships weren't cancelled, but if people are spread out to different states (but still within the same nation), then they would get cancelled. And some people claim that you literally all have to be in the same building, or your Family Premium benefits will be cancelled.

Which is true? I don't know. But maybe we could try an experiment:

If people were willing to start open "Family" accounts that were regionally restricted, maybe they would fly under YouTube's radar and be allowed. So for example, I live in California, and if someone else who also lived in California were to create a Family account with a Premium membership, and then invite in (sharing the cost) four other (random) people, with the only restriction being that they all live in California. Then the "family" would all apear to be in the same general area, and YouTube would allow it. And if that didn't work, we could get more geographically restrictive, and limit potential members to (in my case, for example) the San Francisco Bay Area, or wherever your city/region is.

I don't have the tech know-how to be the one wh starts a group, but I would be willing to join a newly created California-only Family group with Premium membership.

And if other people wanted to try similar experiments in other locations (e.g. an Ireland-only family, New York-only family, etc.), I'd love to hear the results if it worked or not.

Any thoughts?

Ive been having this issue for a year. I looked everywhere to find a solution and Im just quite confused. The google support doesn't do jack shit. I need a step by step guide on how to verify my location in order to continue using my yt premium membership. Im part of a family plan aswell. Where do I contact someone about this issue?