AT&T Hotspot ad injections


Jonathan Mayer:

AT&T has an (understandable) incentive to seek consumer-side income from its free wifi service, but this model of advertising injection is particularly unsavory. Among other drawbacks: It exposes much of the user's browsing activity to an undisclosed and untrusted business. It clutters the user's web browsing experience. It tarnishes carefully crafted online brands and content, especially because the ads are not clearly marked as part of the hotspot service.3 And it introduces security and breakage risks, since website developers generally don't plan for extra scripts and layout elements.

Re/Code reports an AT&T statement saying the ads were a limited trial and that trial has completed. Timing of closing the trial immediately following some bad publicity could be a coincidence... or not.

If you're just hooking up with free WiFi, you're pretty much at the whims of the provider for reasonable security, privacy, and user experience. Still this is an AT&T hotspot that was presumably accessed by an AT&T subscriber. That kind of smells.