Users of the HTC One M9, One M8 and One M7 are flocking online to protest how HTC has bombarded them with notification ads for a 'Fantastic Four' theme users did not ask for.
Notification ads have always been so intrusive that Google has banned Android developers from using them to promote their apps on the Google Play Store. However, this new push notification ad from HTC is not actually an ad for the 'Fantastic Four' movie, it is an ad for a 'Fantastic Four' theme for the HTC's Sense Home, which could give the Taiwanese firm a technical loophole to get around Google's policies, though one could say the ad still indirectly promotes the 'Fantastic Four' film.
Obviously, users who were not expecting HTC to push a notification ad were in for an unpleasant surprise when they saw it pop up on their smartphones. And the way the Internet goes, people have posted their woes on Reddit only to find out that many other users have seen the same irritating notification ad.
"HTC really is desperate for money," complains one user. "This type of native advertising really screws up the user experience and definitely won't create any brand loyalty."
"This really left a mark on my impression of HTC," chimes in another. "I love my M8. It's a sturdy phone, reliable, and nearly perfect in most ways. I would have loved to buy another HTC going forward. But things like this really leave me questioning if that's the best idea."
At the heart of the complaints is the fact that customers have already paid for their HTC smartphones, which means they do not expect HTC to call up advertisers to pay for the devices once again.
"I paid for my phone and deserve an ad-free experience. HTC has officially lost me as a customer," says another user. "This ad was pushed to my phone despite my use of a custom launcher."
Back in May, HTC announced that it was testing "a limited number of promotions" on its BlinkFeed social and news aggregator app. HTC said at the time that these will be native ads, meaning they will look similar to the other content published on BlinkFeed, with the only difference that they have the label "Sponsored" on them. The company also said the ads will be relevant to the user's interests based on the content they click on BlinkFeed.
However, HTC made no mention of notification ads at all. Fortunately, there is a way for users to never receive any of these intrusive notifications in the future. Simply open the Settings app, go to Sound & notification, then App notifications, then Sense Home. From there, users can turn off Sense Home notifications and say goodbye to the notification ads for good.
Photo: KÄrlis DambrÄns | Flickr