Kloned (4 posts) • October 13, 2008, 9:37am 0

Hi, I am experiencing the most anyoning-privacy-intusing form of ads in my private Internet connection at home here in Kunming.
I have 2 lines both of different bandwith. Both hired to China Telecom.

It happens usually when I start my home page. It is a floating ad by China Telecom. It happens on Iexplorer and Opera but not on Firefox or Maxthon.

It implies that China Telecom can get on my computer and flash anything whenever they want. For now it is a simple ad by them, but where is this going?

Kloned (4 posts) • October 13, 2008, 9:38am 0

Sorry this should be posted on "Living in Kunming" not here on food... Can you guys move?

Greginchina (239 posts) • October 13, 2008, 12:02pm 0

I've seen this too. It happens once every so often.

The same thing happened a couple of years ago and caused me loads of grief. My browser kept randomly going to an advert for QQ. I scanned my computer with every spyware/virus utility I could find before I realised it was actually China Telecom that was doing this rather than any dodgy malware.

In short, there's nothing you can do about it other than send all your internet traffic through an encrypted VPN in another country.

Greginchina (239 posts) • October 13, 2008, 12:03pm 0

By the way this is happening to me in Firefox. I don't think there's anything that's specifically making it only happen in IExplorer and Opera for you. Its just random. If you keep refreshing a page in firefox you'll eventually get that annoying advert.

Matthew (73 posts) • October 13, 2008, 4:38pm 0

Kloned, we moved the thread.

Here at GoKunming Towers, we've noticed similar. We're seeing what appear to be ads for the internet access package that we subscribe to, which strikes me as pretty odd ad-targeting. I've also experienced similar ad-injection from other providers in Kunming. It's not too mafan right now, but Kloned's question is valid: where is this going?

Kloned (4 posts) • October 14, 2008, 11:41am 0

The worst part is the invasion to privacy. It actually means that our computers are open to the China Telecom Network (since all privacy and antivirus systems are protecting the pc).

This is a complaint against commercial abuse, not a political one.

Firefox with "AdBlock Plus" and "NoScript" does not get the ad.

Greginchina (239 posts) • October 17, 2008, 1:35am 0

This isn't unique to China Telecom. Its a less sophisticated and completely untargeted version of what's happening in lots of places - Advertising companies getting into bed with ISPs.

see tinyurl.com/gdphorm

Kloned (4 posts) • October 17, 2008, 8:31am 0

Thanks Greg. I believe the article refers to the tracking of user habits in the UK. In the US they backed off. I doubt they will ever allow it in the rest of the EU. Anyway, those ads would have been delivered through ad servers to webpages that allow it and get paid for it, and not floating over pages that do not receive money for it.

However, I am not talking about the tracking, but the displaying of ads over (over) my home page. No matter how briefly.
I pay a lot of money a month to have several websites without ads. I do that by design.
The ISP is using my own visual intellectual property. They are not paying me a cent or allowing me to say anything on the matter. Furthermore, anyone seeing those ads on their home pages for the first time will think they got phished. Worst of all, they will think it is associated to the website it self. At first I thought that GoKunming was infected and infected my machine.
Can ISP's flash ads at their will over pages that you work so hard to create?