Telkomsel And XL Pop Ads And How To Opt-out
August 1, 2013 by Remco | 1 Comment
It’s a pretty new phenomenon in Indonesia. I have two paid sim cards from Telkomsel and XL. For both I pay a monthly subscription fee and obviously I pay for the usage. So far no problem. However, both Telkomsel and XL decided to monetize their paying customers just a tad bit more. When you now access the Internet using 3G changes are you will get to see a Pop ad which is basically a complete page take over. Something similar as in this screenshot.
Annoying to say the least. Also pretty much illegal in most of the rest of the world. And for good reasons I think. Why? Well, first of all, I pay for this service.
It’s not like I use a website like Tokobagus for free and Tokobagus in return shows me some ads to pay for the bills. No, I actually pay for this service and at the time when I subscribed their service did not include any pop ads. Next, I never did an opt-in for this service, which in my understanding is required by law. But even when not required by law, it would be the proper netiquette. Right? Also, as far as I know and can remember I never got any instructions on how to opt-out.
I will share the opt-out methods in the end of this post.