AT&T Says Injecting Ads Into Airport Wi-Fi Was A Test

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
After getting called out for injecting ads into airport Wi-Fi, AT&T now says that it was all just a "test" that has coincidentally ended. Seems legit. :rolleyes:

“We trialed an advertising program for a limited time in two airports (Dulles and Reagan National) and the trial has ended,” AT&T told Re/code in a statement. “The trial was part of an ongoing effort to explore alternate ways to deliver a free Wi-Fi service that is safe, secure and fast.”
 
Safe and secure my ass. What they did was pretty much the exact opposite by putting crap into people's browser windows.
 
Is there anywhere to go or anything to do that won't result in some form of advertising being vomited on us? I know the saying is "first thing we do is we kill all the lawyers" but I'm quite happy to substitute "marketers" ... they're up there with car salesmen as least-likely-to-add-to-quality-of-life on the scumbag scale.
 
“The trial was part of an ongoing effort to explore alternate ways to deliver a free Wi-Fi service that can exploit our users and make us money.”
 
No, it wasn't a test. It was a strategic maneuver to plant seeds of exploitation building towards a future of milking the masses.
 
To be fair it was a test to
a) see if it would work
b) see if they could get away with it
c) not give a shit if they did get caught if they still made money off it.

Kind of like how every car on the road is a test, there's only so much that manufactures can test in their labs, so the unwitting public becomes their guinea pigs.
 
The Washington Wi-Fi Project has already been terminated. It was designed primarily as a sort of advanced game program. We'd hoped it might build into a good training platform... but, quite honestly, for a strictly theoretical exercise... the cost-benefit ratio was just too high. It's all but decommissioned at this point.

All right. What's next?

Okay. This is... Black Briar
 
LA airport has it already. You have to download an app or watch a video to browse for an hour. I guess they gotta make money somehow and I am okay with it. I mean free is free if I have to watch some adds I am cool I am not butt hurt about it. I don't know what the big deal is. Its life. lol
 
There is an easy solution for this ... get rid of free WiFi unless the Airport or some other Vendor sponsors it ... as long as we are offering paid services for "free" we will always get into these conflicts of how to fund these "free" things ... most reasonable people don't expect free internet on the airplanes so I don't know why there should be an expectation of free service in the Airport ... if the Airports do it they could just build it into the Airport taxes we already pay with our ticket purchases
 
I get so tired of marketing buzz words that make their way into everything from ads to political campaigns.

"The American people..." blah blah
"Best in class..."
"Fast, safe, secure..."

After a point, the words have no meaning to the intelligent human as they are used everywhere to describe everything.
 
rpeters1969 said:
Is there anywhere to go or anything to do that won't result in some form of advertising being vomited on us? I know the saying is "first thing we do is we kill all the lawyers" but I'm quite happy to substitute "marketers" ... they're up there with car salesmen as least-likely-to-add-to-quality-of-life on the scumbag scale.
Click to expand...

Nearly everything in life is designed to separate your money from your wallet. ;)
 
I don't get why this is a big deal. Airport internet service is like the yuckness because you usually have to pay for a connection that's slow and sniffed by everyone else in the terminal. At least with this kinda thing, your slow and sniffed by everyone else in the terminal connection is available for free.
 
Well the good part about this is that it was found out, and people called them out on it. Now they are in full damage control mode.

Hopefully that serves as a warning for companies thinking about similar activities.
 
dont know anything about this "test", and I dont have anything to really contribute to this discussion, but i just wanted to say i hate at&t.

wont do business with em.

they had this "free phone upgrade" thingy years and years back, but if the phone "cost" $800 (always inflated) and youre getting it for free, you'd have to "pay the tax" + some fees, which might come out to $100+. so it's "free after you pay the tax and special fees". that isnt free. when you go to the supermarket and they have a deal of buy one get one free, its free, period. no additional fee, no additional tax.

i complained to the BBB, they put me in contact with some at&t representative who was super douchy. it basically ended with both of us telling each other to go fuck ourselves.

sorry for the mini rant - dont know why the wifi ads story brought this up.
 
I can't wait for a simple app to DL on your phone to block ads like ad blocker for PC. Of course it needs to have a white list feature.

I know you can get them, but they generally required rooting/jailbraking. I want an app I DL and it works.
 
OEM said:
I can't wait for a simple app to DL on your phone to block ads like ad blocker for PC. Of course it needs to have a white list feature.

I know you can get them, but they generally required rooting/jailbraking. I want an app I DL and it works.
Click to expand...

There's like an Ad Block Pro (Plus?) thing-y for Android devices that I tried to use on the Android x86 build that I installed on a netbook. It might just be something quirky or dumb about the x86 build, but after I installed it, there was no Internet access at all (and yes, I guess it was an effectively rooted OS). So it did block ads, but that was only because it also blocked EVERYTHING else...and with a Google device, maybe blocking ads does mean blocking everything. :p
 
It was a test to see if anyone was actually paying attention. Most websites have ads already so maybe they were hoping that people wouldn't notice that there were more ads.
 
Behold! The future! *cough* I mean the present! :D

quote-futurama-internet-ads.jpg
 
I sometimes wonder if all of this obvious bullshit is not to test the public and their awareness. They want to see if we are awake or sleeping. Feed us GMO's, chemtrails, floride in the water, and just maybe we will be dumbed down enough to fall for this absolute ridiculousness.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top