It’s not just HTC: Samsung also pushes ‘notification ads’ to its customers

By Williams Pelegrin August 21, 2015

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge top angle — Giuliano Correia/Digital Trends

At this point, consumers are probably used to seeing notification advertisements from various applications, or ads that show up as a notification. Unfortunately, when a phone manufacturer does it, it becomes a far more troubling practice. Unfortunately, with HTC and now Samsung doing it, this might be a trend that won’t die down soon, reports Android Police.

The outlet reported receiving a notification ad from Samsung through the company’s Push Service, which is supposed to provide notification support for apps like Samsung Pay and Samsung Link, among many others. This particular notification ad was for a show on Bravo, with the ad “sponsored by Land Rover.” When pressed, the ad would let you set a reminder through the Peel app, which is part of the stock Galaxy S6 software package.

However, this wasn’t the end of Samsung’s notification ads, as another ad was screen-captured by a German user. This particular ad was for the Galaxy S6 Plus, which was announced during Samsung’s most recent Unpacked event. Tapping the ad would take you to Samsung’s German Galaxy S6 Edge Plus’ listing website, making it more of an ad than the aforementioned notification ad.

More interestingly is how the second ad was also pushed to customers through the same Push Service, meaning Samsung could have tweaked the service to allow the company to push ads to its customers. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a phone manufacturer push ads to its customers, unfortunately, as HTC was also caught red-handed pushing an ad to its customers for this year’s Fantastic Four movie.

This is a troubling practice for those who believe we are already overexposed to ads, as well as to those who believe we should have complete control of our phones, yet it’s a practice that we will hear more of in the future.

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Williams Pelegrin

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Williams is an avid New York Yankees fan, speaks Spanish, resides in Colorado, and has an affinity for Frosted Flakes. Send…

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