Netskope Global Technical Success (GTS)

Youtube - Allow Only Specific Category

Netskope Cloud Version - 126

Objective

Allow only specific Youtube Category

Prerequisite

Netskope Next-Gen SWG license

Context

As we are aware, YouTube is a streaming media platform that offers content across various categories such as Music, Education, Games, News, Sports, and more. If a customer wishes to restrict access to only a specific category, they can follow the configuration steps below.

Do You Know?

• Netskope acknowledges Youtube as a Cloud Application and provides a pre-defined cloud app connector.
• As of June 02, 2025 with Netskope’s Youtube predefined cloud app connector, customers can exercise control over the following activities:

Configuration

• Every YouTube video is assigned to a category. Netskope categorizes YouTube videos as "Object Type."

• Now, let's consider that the business requirement is to permit only the “Object Type - Education".
• Add a Realtime Protection Policy

Path: Netskope Tenant UI >>> Policies >>> Real-time Protection >>> New Policy

• When a user attempts to access a video that does not belong to the "Education" object type, the policy will block the viewing access, as Action is set to "Block" for the selected 17 object types excluding Education.

Recommendations

• YouTube also displays ads, so it is advisable to implement a real-time protection policy to block online ads.
• Policy Order

Terms and Conditions

• In the configuration example above, the user notification is set to 'Mute.' Whether or not to include a user notification is at the discretion of the administrator.
• Netskope engineering is currently addressing a product enhancement request to streamline this use case. Until the product feature becomes available, this workaround can be utilized

Notes

• This article is authored by Netskope Global Technical Success (GTS).
• For any further inquiries related to this article, please contact Netskope GTS by submitting a support case with 'Case Type – How To Questions'.