Coming soon to a carrier phone near you: Lock screen ads

Ad-tech company Glance promises users will “consume what is shown to them.”

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[foofoo22]

Lets see how well that works out for them when no one buys a device with their crap on it or finds ways to get rid of it..

Also if you are putting unstoppable ads on someone's phone are you also paying for their data?

No? Go take a hike.

Well given people buy plenty of android phones with uninstallable/unremovable adware/apps, if it lowers the android phone price this will catch on.

 

[evan_s]

O hell no. No way I want adds shoved in my face, using my data and battery life. I'm probably sticking with Apple anyway so I don't have to worry about it. My wife and both my parents use Android phones based on my recommendations and I'm definitely not going to let them get anything with this if I have any input in it. Presumably unlocked non-carrier specific phones won't have this. I'd hope that carriers will follow Amazon's lead and have different price points with or without lock screen ads but I suspect that won't be the case and the best we might be able to hope for is at least clearly labeling phones with ads.

Now my inlaw's on the other hand will probably end up with this on their next phone since they seem to just go to the Verizon store and accept what ever budget Samsung device they are pushing at that point in time.

 

[internet2000]

Can’t wait for the European Union to force Apple to implement an API for this. You know, for fairness.

 

[SixDegrees]

If it pushes ads for contraceptives in Texas, will Glance's executives be brought up on criminal charges? Not exactly a silver lining - more like a zinc lining - but it's something.

 

[AmorImpermissus]

Ugh I seriously hope that Congress and the EU don't try to force open this door in the name of competition.

I see a potential problem here, especially in the EU: Ads get pushed based on individual tailoring, and in this case those individually tailored ads are available on a publicly viewable screen. There's a potential PII exposure violation here if someone wanted to bring that up.

The US doesn't have such protections, but I think there will be enough pushback against this that we won't see it as an unremovable option. My new Android phone dedicated itself out-of-the-box to pushing ads at me in different forms, but it only took a few minutes to turn those pushes off completely, and I think something like this would be no exception.

Plus, Glance is going to have to pay phone providers a LOT of money even to make this a default installation.

Except the courts are (half?) prepaid here. Every single aspiring Alito and Thomas will always favor business interests and Christian fundamentalists when given the chance. The EU, by contrast, seems to have at least some politicians and members of the judiciary that give an actual fuck, and take seriously their role to protect people.

 

[t_newt]

This is why I ultimately left Android for iPhone in 2012.

Out of curiosity, is it that difficult to buy unlocked phones without carrier-crapola in the U.S.? I know ISPs and telcos over there get up to all sorts of horribly anti-consumer, greedy crap, but surely there must be some source to buy phones without all that stuff as well?

I live in Finland and I don't think my carrier has even offered the option of carrier-locked phones for two decades now and I've never seen any carrier-specific stuff pre-installed on any of the phones I've bought.

You can buy one unlocked directly from Apple. I have mine through a Verizon installment plan but the carrier specific software is minimal and unobtrusive.

But no Android-phones?

You can buy Pixel phones directly from Google and Samsung phones directly from Samsung--I've done both. I'm not sure who will go with this 'Glance' advertising lockscreen. Maybe it will be a low-cost option like Amazon has done with their Fire tablets in the past. Maybe they got ">80% reach on all new smartphones" in India, but that's a market with very low-cost phones.

 

[Anoff]

Do you want me to go back to rooting and installing custom roms on my phone? because this is how you get me to go back to installing custom roms on my phone....

 

[aapis]

Thanks, I hate it.

 

[H. Pylori]

Nope.

 

[SixDegrees]

Ugh I seriously hope that Congress and the EU don't try to force open this door in the name of competition.

I see a potential problem here, especially in the EU: Ads get pushed based on individual tailoring, and in this case those individually tailored ads are available on a publicly viewable screen. There's a potential PII exposure violation here if someone wanted to bring that up.

The US doesn't have such protections, but I think there will be enough pushback against this that we won't see it as an unremovable option. My new Android phone dedicated itself out-of-the-box to pushing ads at me in different forms, but it only took a few minutes to turn those pushes off completely, and I think something like this would be no exception.

Plus, Glance is going to have to pay phone providers a LOT of money even to make this a default installation.

Except the courts are (half?) prepaid here. Every single aspiring Alito and Thomas will always favor business interests and Christian fundamentalists when given the chance. The EU, by contrast, seems to have at least some politicians and members of the judiciary that give an actual fuck, and take seriously their role to protect people.

I don't see how phone providers make money off this unless Glance pays them, either up front or by way of a cut of some sort. And given the pushback it's receiving here, Glance will have to pay them a lot to install this on their phones, and - like other push technologies already on Android phones - it'll be possible to disable it. I don't see courts being involved much at all in the US, while in Europe it's possible it could run into privacy protections.

 

[pug fugly]

Jesus-dystopian-christ

Can capitalism just die already?

 

[Deleted member 92645]

And here I was, contemplating a return to Android after a decade of iPhone ownership.

Consume what I’m shown? Not bloody likely.

Edit: I like my iPhone very much. But, as primarily a Windows PC user, the iPhone doesn’t interface with my PC very well. Since I’m not getting a Mac, I was considering an Android phone when it came time to replace my 6s Plus. But not now.

I'm sure you have different uses cases, but I think I never plugged my iPhone to my Mac, why do you want to plug it to your PC?

 

[Mykyl]

When away from home off WiFi, my daily browsing data usage has gone from roughly 30 MB per day to over 300 MB per day. My daily browsing habits have not changed. I still visit the same sites, but my data usage has increased ten fold - due to advertising.

My data usage has increased so much I have to get a more expensive data plan. I think it is time that advertisers start paying for the data they use to display ads. Why are we paying out of pocket to supplement their business, when they should be paying us for their data usage.

They should be either paying us directly or pay for the portion of our data plans that they use. Why are we paying for data we never asked for or wanted.

I don’t know about you, but my bill is not going down from companies or carriers selling ad space on my phone. Bulk data rates keep going down while cell and hone internet data rates keep going up - as these company’s profits skyrocket.

If advertisers want to force ads on us then make advertisers pay for the data they use to show us their ads.

 

[CalgaryTechGuy]

How about no and F**K OFF!!!

 

[Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer]

Over my prone, suppurating corpse.

Are flip phones made anymore? Going back to dumb phones is more appealing to me with each passing day.

The cheaper featurephones tend to run on KaiOS, which is kinda garbage in a number of ways, including, well, advertisements. I'm often tempted to buy a featurephone, but there aren't a lot out there with Band 71 (one exception is the Nokia 2760, which runs the newer KaiOS 3, but you can't just buy it unlocked, you have to get it through Straight Talk or Tracfone, which means the hotspot is disabled...it's all f--king compromises).

If you don't mind spending a few bucks and you are on Verizon, you might take a look at the Sunbeam F1. I'd probably own one if it had Band 71 support. Otherwise, check out Jose Briones on YouTube. I enjoy watching his videos on various "digital minimalism" phones.

 

[Oldnoobguy]

Hard nope! Coincidentally, I just read a review of a Murena smart phone which runs the /e/OS mobile operating system, a de-Googled version of Android that's supposed to be privacy focused. The OS can be installed on any Android phone. I have used Google's stuff for years in spite of all the accompanying privacy issues simply because I like the convenience. Even the possibility that this crapware might wind up on my phone is xausing me to seriously consider giving this OS a try.

Edited for clarity.

 

[technomom]

And this is why I'll never buy a phone from the mobile providers in the US. You just know they'll crap it up.

 

[technomom]

The phone providers don't.

But Verizon, TMobile and ATT can.

Ugh I seriously hope that Congress and the EU don't try to force open this door in the name of competition.

I see a potential problem here, especially in the EU: Ads get pushed based on individual tailoring, and in this case those individually tailored ads are available on a publicly viewable screen. There's a potential PII exposure violation here if someone wanted to bring that up.

The US doesn't have such protections, but I think there will be enough pushback against this that we won't see it as an unremovable option. My new Android phone dedicated itself out-of-the-box to pushing ads at me in different forms, but it only took a few minutes to turn those pushes off completely, and I think something like this would be no exception.

Plus, Glance is going to have to pay phone providers a LOT of money even to make this a default installation.

Except the courts are (half?) prepaid here. Every single aspiring Alito and Thomas will always favor business interests and Christian fundamentalists when given the chance. The EU, by contrast, seems to have at least some politicians and members of the judiciary that give an actual fuck, and take seriously their role to protect people.

I don't see how phone providers make money off this unless Glance pays them, either up front or by way of a cut of some sort. And given the pushback it's receiving here, Glance will have to pay them a lot to install this on their phones, and - like other push technologies already on Android phones - it'll be possible to disable it. I don't see courts being involved much at all in the US, while in Europe it's possible it could run into privacy protections.

 

[romdude]

And this is why despite me having Apple stocks I prefer Android. If they force it, time to Root (Jailbreak for Iphone users) and remove that offending lockscreen. No straight jacket for me. My phone stays exactly the way I want it to.

 

[Smithy6482]

Oh hell no. This is straight dystopian nightmare fuel. I'd switch to a damn iPhone and I hate using Apple products.

I've never jailbroken a phone (no real need on Android) but this would make me do it.

 

[equine_physics]

My first thought was fine, I'll just root my phone (I own it outright) and put a Android alternative on it. I don't use many features other than camera, text, phone, and running apps.

I realize that from now on I would need to buy a phone outright, rinse and repeat above, but I would still prefer a quality phone over mobile devices that start to come out of the woodwork. What gets me is the gravitas to think that even though I own the phone, I pay for every bit that comes and goes on the phone this company thinks it can steal my bandwidth on top of selling my data without the ability to opt out?

This should be opt in (Looking at You Congress) and let's see how many want that "Feature"

 

[Jackattak]

This is why I ultimately left Android for iPhone in 2012.

Can you share with us what is going to happen in 2032 that might impact our tech lives? That seems like a really handy skill.

Have any tea leaves around? You’ll also need a rusty kitchen knife and a chicken.

 

[cdwilliams1]

Are flip phones made anymore? Going back to a dumb phone gets more appealing to me with each passing day.

That Punkt MP02 does look sexy. I've thought about it for my work phone.

 

[thismarty]

The things that come creeping out of the (non-Pixel end of the) Android cesspool never cease to amaze and disgust me.

 

[Verbum Bummer]

Another glancing blow across the bow of our sinking ship, personal dignity.

 

[Snark218]

This is why I ultimately left Android for iPhone in 2012.

Can you share with us what is going to happen in 2032 that might impact our tech lives? That seems like a really handy skill.

Have any tea leaves around? You’ll also need a rusty kitchen knife and a chicken.

*unzips* I mean, it sounds weird but I'm in I guess

 

[allears]

And here I was, contemplating a return to Android after a decade of iPhone ownership.

Consume what I’m shown? Not bloody likely.

Edit: I like my iPhone very much. But, as primarily a Windows PC user, the iPhone doesn’t interface with my PC very well. Since I’m not getting a Mac, I was considering an Android phone when it came time to replace my 6s Plus. But not now.

I'm sure you have different uses cases, but I think I never plugged my iPhone to my Mac, why do you want to plug it to your PC?

I'm a long-time Windows user who recently switched from Android to iPhone. I love the hardware, I'm impressed with the app ecosystem, and the sheer number of features is boggling, even if I find iOS to be less instinctive than Android.

I plug my iPhone into my PC all the time to back it up, to transfer music and photos, etc. It's easy and fast using iTunes on the PC, or there's lots of 3rd party utilities that do the same. You have to be a little careful about file formats, but it's no big deal.

 

[siliconaddict]

I will shove my phone up a advertiser's ass if they try and pull this shit on me. That is AFTER I crack the screen.


I would sooner go Apple then ever get a phone with this bullshit on it. Remember when you GD phone was yours?

 

[Jeff S]

This is why I ultimately left Android for iPhone in 2012.

There were lock screen ads in 2012?

Here's the thing. There will always be premium phones for those who can afford them, that won't have that crap. The iPhone is just a iOS based premium phone. There are and always will also be Android based premium phones.

This is about monetizing people too broke to spend much money at all on a phone. If you aren't paying for the product, you are the product, as the saying goes.

This isn't really an "Android" problem, as not all Android phones will ever have this problem.

 

[t_newt]

Over my prone, suppurating corpse.

Are flip phones made anymore? Going back to dumb phones is more appealing to me with each passing day.

The cheaper featurephones tend to run on KaiOS, which is kinda garbage in a number of ways, including, well, advertisements. I'm often tempted to buy a featurephone, but there aren't a lot out there with Band 71 (one exception is the Nokia 2760, which runs the newer KaiOS 3, but you can't just buy it unlocked, you have to get it through Straight Talk or Tracfone, which means the hotspot is disabled...it's all f--king compromises).

If you don't mind spending a few bucks and you are on Verizon, you might take a look at the Sunbeam F1. I'd probably own one if it had Band 71 support. Otherwise, check out Jose Briones on YouTube. I enjoy watching his videos on various "digital minimalism" phones.

I never heard of KaiOS, the Linux based OS for featurephones, where apps are HTML5 or Java based and run on the cloud instead of on the device, so you can have really, really cheap phones that still run Youtube and WhatsApp. Apparently it is huge in countries like India, yet these phones can be found in all countries including the US and Europe. Apparently Google is a big investor.

It is like the hidden third hugely popular phone OS that no one talks about.

 

[OmegaWolf747]

I could maybe understand it on low tier prepaid phones, but if they put this crap on high end, postpaid flagship, I'll be POed.

 

[IPunchCholla]

Not happening, I pay for ad free Youtube, Hulu, Kindle devices, etc. If this comes to the Pixel then I'm switching to Apple. I will NOT be force-fed advertising. I'd give up smartphones all-together and go back to using laptops for entertainment before I'd put up with this crap.

It won't. People have slightly different attitudes to advertising in many emerging markets. In my own anecdotal experience, I'm often considered to be wasting money because I pay for the ad-free tier of some services.

Why do that when you can get it for "free" is the question. Try explaining why you dislike ads to someone who assumes them to be part of the experience.

I try telling people that what makes them uniquely them is their desires, what they want to do, who they want to be, what they want…. Ads aren’t really about selling you something, they are about instilling desire. All ads are meant first and foremost to make you want, secondly to satis that want with a particular item/service. Being constantly inundated with ads will cause you to lose who you are and become what the ad makers want you to be. This isn’t a small thing, it is about the fundamental nature of self.

 

[TomXP411]

Nope. Just nope.

I even paid the extra $20, or whatever it was, to remove "sponsored" ads from my Kindle when I last had one. I'm getting tired of ads being everywhere we look. Some spaces should be free of attempted mental coersion.

 

[young grasshopper]

 

[woofrok]

I think this would be enough to get me to switch to a linux phone finally. Sure the functionality and hardware may not be the greatest but I obviously don't want all of the "features" you would be getting on android.

Guess I need to get back to seeing if my Pine64 original Pine Phone (or possibly the newer Pine Phone Pro) can get a distro that will make it finally able to replace my Androids.

Also worth checking out the Purism Libre 5, although much more expensive than the Pine64 phones, especially for the USA-only sourced model. https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/

 

[r2k-in-the-vortex]

This is why I ultimately left Android for iPhone in 2012.

It's not Android problem, it's not buying your own phone upfront problem. Buy the phone and service separately and you'll actually own your phone.

 

[Demosthenes642]

Kill it with fire.

 

[bigsnake499]

Haha, what a ripoff of ad money. I will ignore it like every other ad that crosses my path.

 

[neeksgeek]

And here I was, contemplating a return to Android after a decade of iPhone ownership.

Consume what I’m shown? Not bloody likely.

Edit: I like my iPhone very much. But, as primarily a Windows PC user, the iPhone doesn’t interface with my PC very well. Since I’m not getting a Mac, I was considering an Android phone when it came time to replace my 6s Plus. But not now.

I'm sure you have different uses cases, but I think I never plugged my iPhone to my Mac, why do you want to plug it to your PC?

Well, it would make file sharing from one device to another easier. Right now that’s upload to cloud, then download to PC. Not a huge problem. Also there’s no way to use functions like Handoff and Universal Clipboard. The only thing I’m using my iPhone for in connection with my PC is a Bluetooth lock when I’m away for 30 seconds.

 

[barich]

I've always bought Nexus or Pixel phones directly from Google, not phones sold by carriers.

I recently got a Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite from AT&T at work, which was offered as part of a bundle offer to decrease the cost of the landline we need for our alarm system. This thing is packed with AT&T crapware, and there's this blandly named "Mobile Services Manager" app that downloads a bunch of free-to-play games on setup without asking and apparently continues to do so, along with throwing advertising at you. It's basically malware.

I will maintain that buying an iPhone/iPad or carrier unlocked Android device is the way to go. It was shocking how terrible the user experience is on this tablet.