Microsoft Tested, Then Killed Ads in Windows 10's Mail App

Microsoft appears to have been testing ads in the Mail app for Windows 10, but quickly axed the project once the media got wind of it.

The ads were most recently noticed by an Italian blog, Aggiornamenti Lumia, which said Microsoft was testing the feature in a preview release open to Windows Insiders. To lose the ads, you'd have to pay for an Office 365 subscription.

The personalized ads were originally going to come from Microsoft and appear when you used the Mail app to open non-work email accounts like Microsoft's Outook.com and third-party providers such as Google's Gmail or Yahoo Mail.

However, Microsoft was quick to kill the test feature once the media began to report on it. "This was an experimental feature that was never intended to be tested broadly and it is being turned off," Microsoft communications lead Frank Shaw tweeted on Friday.

The company also pulled the official support document that explained Microsoft's decision to test the ads in the Mail app. Before it was taken down, the document said Microsoft was testing the ads for users based in Brazil, Canada, Australia, and India.

"Consistent with consumer email apps and services like Outlook.com, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail, advertising allows us to provide, support, and improve some of our products," Microsoft said in the document.

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The ads were going to appear in the "Other" view when you accessed your Mail inbox. Only users running Windows Enterprise or Windows 10 Education were going to be exempt from seeing them.

Microsoft has not commented on whether the ads will be return at a later date. But it was testing the feature for some time; MSPoweruser received a screenshot in July, which showed an AncestryDNA ad running in the Mail app.

Ads within online email services have become standard practice in the industry, but not for operating systems. Nevertheless, Microsoft has been introducing more ads, or what it calls "suggestions," into the Windows 10 interface. They can pop up in the Start Menu and File Explorer, even if you've paid for a Windows 10 installation. If you're looking to turn off these suggestions, this guide can help.

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