stanford att hotspot adWe’re not sure if this is something that AT&T has always been doing, but according to a report from Jonathan Mayer, a computer scientist and a lawyer from Stanford, he has recently discovered that if you were to use an AT&T hotspot, it is possible that the service could end up injecting ads into your browsing experience.

Mayer recently noticed that ads were being injected into the websites he was visiting. For example as you can see in the image above, for some reason an ads for jewelry appeared while browsing the Stanford website, a website which should be about education not about the hawking of jewelry and other wares.

fcc att adHe also discovered that visiting government websites like the FCC ended up displaying ads for shoes, which once again has zero relevance and has no reason for being there either. He later realized it was AT&T’s hotspot that was injecting ads into his browsing experience. While Mayer is understanding to AT&T’s need to generate revenue for providing this free service, he ads that there are some potential dangers behind the practice.

He writes, “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.”

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