Is Comcast Wi-Fi Serving Self-Promotional Ads?
Comcast WiFi Serving Self-Promotional Ads
Comcast has started to serve Comcast advertisements to devices that are connected to one of its Wi-Fi hotspots. According to a spokesman from the company, they have adopted this approach to alert customers on pertinent information such as to tell them they are connected to Comcast Xfinity service or to remind web surfers to download Xfinity apps and so on.
The Comcast spokesman has stated that the ads appear every seven minutes and last for a few seconds. He was quick to point out that these ads only apply to Xfinity Wi-Fi hotspots and will not affect Comcast customers that access Xfinity WiFi routers from their homes.
The ads work using JavaScript and some people have expressed some concerns as regards security. This is because such script can be used to perform a lot of malicious acts such as redirecting user data to other portals. In this time when internet hacking is such a problem, such concerns are quite valid. However, Comcast representatives maintain that they have no bad intentions. They insist that the company has layers of security in place to keep hackers from exploiting the Xfinity network in any way.
Comcast Warned, Javascript Creates Too Many Loopholes
However, even if Comcast insists that they have no malicious intent and even if they insist that hackers cannot get access to the websites, many still insist that JavaScript creates security vulnerabilities in some of the websites accessed. So even if they don’t send the malicious scripts to their customer’s websites, these scripts end up being received by the customers through loopholes created by the Java Scripts.
While Comcast’s approach is criticized, it’s not the first company to do this. Many companies help businesses to set up Wi-Fi hotspots that use JavaScript injection to append ads. However, Comcast stands out because it is one of the leading internet service providers in the USA and hence it has access to very many internet accounts. There is also the question whether this approach follows the rules of net neutrality. We can only wait and see what comes out of this. Will Comcast continue this practice or will the company be stopped by the FCC?
MORE:
Comcast Wi-Fi serving self-promotional ads via JavaScript injection
The practice raises security, net neutrality issues as FCC mulls Internet reforms.
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