On the 8th night of the month, Wangnan Technology received a tip-off from a net friend regarding China Telecom's practice of targeting ADSL users in Sichuan with advertisements. Users often encounter intrusive ads in various formats such as redirects and pop-ups while browsing web pages, severely affecting their normal internet usage.
Wu Teacher from Sichuan informed Wangnan Technology that on the night of May 1, when he was visiting a portal site, instead of seeing the website's page, he was redirected to an 800*600 advertisement for China Telecom, only returning to the intended portal after 5-8 seconds. Wu subsequently reported this situation to the local China Telecom customer service hotline (10000), where he was informed that it was part of a targeted advertising service launched by China Telecom. Any ADSL broadband user of China Telecom could receive these advertisements, which included full-screen redirects, pop-up ads, and even floating ads that scrolled with the webpage.
Due to the obstruction caused by China Telecom's advertisements, which significantly affected his browsing experience, Wu argued that the ADSL internet service agreement signed with China Telecom did not include any clause requiring users to accept advertisements from them, nor were users informed about such advertisements. He requested that China Telecom remove the ads from his account and provide a written apology. After multiple complaints, China Telecom agreed to remove the advertisements from Wu's account at the server end and apologized verbally over the phone, but refused to issue a written apology.
According to the official website of a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sichuan Telecom called "Sichuan Public Information Industry Co., Ltd.", the company is responsible for delivering advertisements directly to ADSL users of Sichuan Telecom. Their network-targeted direct advertising system matches keywords based on the type of webpage the ADSL user is currently viewing and pushes multimedia content such as images, sound, video, and games to the user according to those keywords. The forms of advertisement delivery include two major types: redirection, pop-ups, floating, scrolling banners, and page flipping among others. For example, when using two major re-directions, users generally have a few seconds of waiting time when opening a website. During this process, China Telecom inserts a full-screen ad (size 800*600) lasting 5-8 seconds before reaching the intended destination page. However, for regular internet users, it is difficult to distinguish whether the pop-up ads are from China Telecom or the visited websites. Furthermore, since the advertisements are delivered from China Telecom's server end, users cannot simply block the pop-up ads to avoid harassment.
An advertiser claiming to be a "China Telecom Network Targeted Direct Advertising Designated First-level Agent" told Wangnan Technology that this targeted direct advertising does not require any plug-ins or software to be installed on the user’s machine. As long as the user can access the internet normally, they will see the advertisements, which is described as a "network advertising project developed by China Telecom fully utilizing its resource advantages," distinct from spyware that requires client-side installations, and thus not considered spyware. This person claimed that to avoid causing user aversion and complaints, the advertising system specifically targets users' habits, such as showing car advertisements only when users browse car-related webpages. Additionally, the advertiser disclosed that for every user click on a full-screen two-major re-direction advertisement, an advertising fee of 0.5 yuan is required.
In fact, the network targeted direct advertising service is a business that Sichuan Telecom started this year. Whether it's ADSL, community broadband, business fiber, dial-up, or dedicated line users of Sichuan Telecom, when entering characters in the URL or search engine, if the characters match pre-set keywords in the system, relevant advertisement content will be automatically pushed within one second. An advertiser without specific direction mentioned that this service is currently only implemented in Sichuan, covering approximately 10 million people, accounting for 88% of Sichuan's non-broadband users.
Regarding the network targeted direct advertising service, Sichuan Telecom considers it a concrete deployment of China Telecom's involvement in media business, stating that it offers "a large user base and controllable distribution channels, fitting the essential needs of media development." Following this, various local branches of China Telecom also began experimenting with advertising projects through client-side programs.
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