MTNL is still injecting ads in users browsers and has a new partner
Phozeca this time, the information sent to this unknown third party is baffling and the way in which it's sent is preposterous.
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I have been a
MTNL customer for quite some time (a rather long time I should say) and all in all its a been a fairly good service but recently the tricks they've been pulling up are changing my opinion.
I remember seeing MTNL popups in the beginning of 2014 (as was the case with many users which I would find much later), I didn't think much of these then and dismissed them as a few annoying but sometimes even useful alerts from the company. These started getting frequent but not to the point that I would actually do something about them.
Later in the year I saw
popup ads appearing in the corners of websites, it didn't even cross my mind that these ads were actually being served by
MTNL I just thought these must be some new kind of ads on websites. This went on, the popups and ads kept coming and I kept dismissing them.
Until I ran into this thread by
@Sushubh:
Source
It's now when I realized that the little ads in the corner weren't displayed by the website but my own ISP to whom I was paying for internet services. I didn't mind the MTNL alerts but to think that I put up with its ads for two years...
I came to this forum back then and read up on the thread
MTNL Broadband is injecting ads on your computer pretending it's a feature, seeing the way they were injecting these ads and collecting user data was beyond what I imagined, giving my data to a third party that's a no no as well.
I decided to block these ads and alerts by blocking their server which was:
203.94.248.40 didn't see the ads and alerts after that.
This was until this past December when I noticed these again I simply blocked the domain that was serving these:
http://mtnl.phozeca.com, I was intrigued to look into this new party serving me these ads but didn't.
A few days ago someone posted
MTNL Broadband is injecting ads on your computer pretending it's a feature that
MTNL has abandoned these ads, so I went to look if this really was the case, it wasn't but what I found was preposterous.
I went to a
http:// page to check the claim made by the user in this case
Latest News, Breaking News Live, Current Headlines, India News Online | The Indian Express and looked at the network request, and sure enough the ad network request by
MTNL was blocked by the rule I had set earlier but what I had not seen at that time was the amount of data being sent.
The simple ad request initiated by MTNL included so much data in just the URL I was flabbergasted, it included my
phone number, my
IP address, my
screen size etc. in just the
http:// header (
Network Request: Paste2.org - Viewing Paste WaH6YYmp), this info could easily have been snooped up by anyone and who knows what info they might have already given to this ad partner.
I decided to check who exactly were these guys who are getting my data. Turns out their company:
Phozeca Digital Services Pvt. Ltd (
Advertising Platform - Most Cost Efficient & Highly Targeted Advertising Solution - Phozeca |) was registered on
18 July, 2014 the time when the
MTNL ads initially started and guess where their office is, according to their own website its in
Gurgaon the same place where the first MTNL ad partner
Adphonso was located makes you suspicious doesn't it.
They also have a very familiar working model:
The most efficient and reliable user engagement method of communicating directly with subscribers on any device in a non-disruptive and cost-effective manner. The right message-right time-right subscriber-right device approach has helped the internet users across the globe to meet their time-critical communication needs along with giving an additional revenue stream to the service providers through ad monetization of their networks.
Hmmm...
These very well could be the same guys but can't say for certain.
On a side note the guy who runs this company previously ran a travel company
TOFLER - ASHISH SINGLA - Basic Signatory Information guess the travails of the travels didn't turn out too good for him. Haha...
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Well I am tired of running around and blocking these unsolicited ads and have finally sent a
DND request to the GM of my region (
MTNL Delhi - Customer SelfCare Portal : Online Book Landline, Broadband and other services) and hope this will stop.
What makes me sad is the fact that most
MTNL users don't even know these ads are served by their own ISP who they are paying to.
This still should not be allowed and
TRAI should take a stand on this, I can't believe they haven't till now.