Ads start appearing on Huawei phone lock screens

[midian182]

What just happened? Huawei’s devices aren’t exactly the most popular of handsets right now, thanks to its blacklisting by the US government, so this won’t come as welcome news for the company. Users around the world are reporting that ads for hotel reservation site Booking.com have started appearing on the lock screens of some Huawei phones.

First reported by Android Police, the ads appeared for Huawei handset owners using the preinstalled background wallpapers. They’ve been reported in a number of countries, including the UK, Netherlands, Ireland, South Africa, Norway and Germany, and on several phone models—the P30 Pro, P20, P20 Lite, P20 Pro, Mate 20 Pro, and Honor 10.

Ah hear... @Huawei why am I now being served ads on my lock screen? Stop it! Moreover @bookingcom what idiot in marketing thought this was ok? #ads #DigitalMarketing #Huawei #measure pic.twitter.com/Ta1lslMwsP

— Dave Rooney (@daverooney) June 13, 2019

According to Digital Trends, Huawei insists it isn’t behind the ads, and an Honor rep said it isn’t the one pushing out advertisements to lock screens, either. Huawei is blaming a third-party app or service for the issue, though the fact so many users of its phones experienced the ads at the same time, and that they are appearing via Huawei’s Magazine Unlock cycle of background images is quite suspicious. The company reportedly tried to blame the Booking.com app, but many experiencing the ads said they don’t have it installed.

#Huawei has turned the random landscape backgrounds on the lock screen into ads. Wtf fuck this pic.twitter.com/6dAUeu17Jf

— Alex (@ValexWhoa) June 13, 2019

Not using the default lock screen wallpapers will stop the ads. For those who want to keep using the feature, manually removing the images from the Magazine Unlock stops the ads from appearing in the cycle.

Whoever’s to blame for this, it couldn’t come at a worse time for Huawei, which has seen sales of its handsets fall after being placed on the US government’s entity list.

Image credit: Karlis Dambrans via Shutterstock

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/80516-ads-start-appearing-huawei-phone-lockscreens.html

 

[stewi0001]

Obliviously the US is to blame ;P

 

[Uncle Al]

Well, they may not be the one to blame, but they sure aren't trying to aggressively fix it either. Looks like a further validation that their equipment isn't secure and regardless of who it accessing it, they need to take a much more aggressive effort to secure their equipment!

 

[Nobina]

Huawei is really trying to win people back after the US ban.

 

[lipe123]

Well, they may not be the one to blame, but they sure aren't trying to aggressively fix it either. Looks like a further validation that their equipment isn't secure and regardless of who it accessing it, they need to take a much more aggressive effort to secure their equipment!

How can they do that when the users blindly say "yes to all permissions" when they install apps?

How many times have you heard people complaining about the new feature in chrome where it asks users if it can send them desktop alerts from certain pages, then days later weird ads pop up out of nowhere on the desktop and they blame the OS. -Same thing here.

 

[ckm88]

Why would you even buy from this company?!

 

[Capaill]

Why would you even buy from this company?!

I'm pretty sure Microsoft do the same with their Win 10 login screen. Annoyingly, they put the ads right near the middle of the screen so if you mis-click when entering your password you'll hit the ad instead. Thankfully pressing Return gets you straight to the password box.

 

[ckm88]

I'm pretty sure Microsoft do the same with their Win 10 login screen. Annoyingly, they put the ads right near the middle of the screen so if you mis-click when entering your password you'll hit the ad instead. Thankfully pressing Return gets you straight to the password box.

Good point.

 

[zorven]

Obliviously the US is to blame ;P

You mean Trump, Trump is to blame. lol

 

[p51d007]

Obliviously the US is to blame ;P

No no no...not the "USA's" fault....drum roll...it's Trump's fault

 

[G0DofPaiN]

"The company reportedly tried to blame the Booking.com app, but many experiencing the ads said they don’t have it installed."

That's a really bad answer, if it was because of an app what stopped porn images being displayed on lockscreen?Surely there are a lot of people that press the wrong download button and have lots of unwanted apps installed.

 

[Shadowboxer]

It’s far more concerning that Huawei don’t know what’s causing this (if that’s the truth). If I owned a Huawei device I would have liked to hear that Huawei was the company pushing adds to me. Rather than nobody knows who is accessing it!

If you’re on an Android device (especially Huawei) be extra careful. That operating system is full of holes. Keep your data safe.

 

[DukeJukem]

"wtf **** is this" lol............

 

[ghostf1re]

I'm pretty sure Microsoft do the same with their Win 10 login screen. Annoyingly, they put the ads right near the middle of the screen so if you mis-click when entering your password you'll hit the ad instead. Thankfully pressing Return gets you straight to the password box.

Good point.

It is a good point. With that being said, you don't look at your Windows 10 login screen anywhere near as frequent as your phone screen, so it's really not much of a comparison.