Is it Verizon or an app hijacking my browser to push sites at me?

[Astrodroid]

This morning for the second time, I woke up to an ad on my browser, or rather my browser tuned to a random promotional site that was clearly an ad push by somebody. I hadn't been using the browser when I went to sleep and certainly hadn't been on visitmyrtlebeach.com, which was what was on my screen when I unlocked it. I've never been to that site and never would go. Last time, a couple of weeks ago, it was ITT Tech, another site I never have visited and never would. Same situation - I hadn't been using my browser when I went to sleep, and then there it was first thing when I unlocked my phone in the morning.

Is this related to that new thing Verizon is doing where you have to opt out on their terms page or else they have permission to target you with ads based on your browsing and location? I opted out of that on the 12th just after they rolled it out, got my first wake-up browser ad on the 13th, and today got my second one on the 28th. If it's Verizon, it sure is taking them a long time to stop spamming me after I opted out.

[UPDATE: Spoke with Verizon. First level support had never heard of anything like this and kept talking about ads related to their program. And I kept saying, it's not ads, it's whole sites, and my browser getting sent to them and then pushed to the top overnight so I see it when I wake up. The fact that they had a hard time understanding what I was saying makes it seem like it's probably not Verizon.]

If it's not Verizon, it's got to be an app, right? I want this stopped immediately. What an intrusion.

The first time it happened was October 13 so I'm thinking it would be something that I either installed on Oct 12 or something I installed as much as two weeks prior to that. Here are the apps I've installed in the two weeks up to the 13th, separated by store. Some of these in my "purchase" list were actually just updates to stock apps. I'd never intentionally install anything VCast for example.

Do you know any of these apps to be the culprit of this sort of thing?

If it's Verizon, would flashing a non-stock ROM block their ability to do this?

ANDROID MARKET:

Oct 11
ES File Explorer
SD Maid
Screencast Video Recorder Free
adbWireless
Quick Boot
Samsung Remote

Oct 9
Vcast Tones
TuneIn Radio
Google Books
Google Maps
Skype mobile on Verizon

Oct 7
Any Cut

Oct 6
Widgetsoid
Bocce
Skype
My Verizon
V Cast Music
Google Search
eBay
CamScanner
DC Metro Transit

Sept 29
Antennas
Elixir 2
Elixir 2 - Widgets


AMAZON APP STORE:

Oct 7
Paper Camera

Oct 6
SketchBook Mobile Express

Oct 1
Graffiti Pro for Android

Sep 29
Symphony of Eternity

Sep 28
Cut the Rope

Sep 27
handrite Note Pro

Sep 26
Treasures of Montezuma 2

 

[pete1118]

Re: Is it Verizon or an app hijacking my browser to push sites at

I opted out and have not had anything unusual, still gong to Google as my home page. Are you sure you don't have a second window open on your browser? Once and a while I have done that inadvertently and get surprised the next time I open the browser...

VZW does some strange things from time to time but I doubt they would stoop this low

 

[Astrodroid]

Re: Is it Verizon or an app hijacking my browser to push sites at

I opted out and have not had anything unusual, still gong to Google as my home page. Are you sure you don't have a second window open on your browser? Once and a while I have done that inadvertently and get surprised the next time I open the browser...

VZW does some strange things from time to time but I doubt they would stoop this low

No, I don't have a second window open and this is not the home page. I remember back in the late 90s, sometimes a hijacker would reset your homepage on your desktop computer to something else so that you saw their site whenever you opened your browser until you fixed it. This is not that. My homepage is still Google. What happens is that even though I wasn't using the browser when I went to sleep, that's the first thing I see when I wake up - instead of the home screen or whatever app I was in when I turned the phone off to go to sleep. The browser has been pushed to the front. And it's tuned to a site I have never visited and never would intentionally visit. So two things are happening here. And since the sites are very clearly promotional in nature, it's clear that this is a deliberate advertising effort. Just not sure whose effort that is. I agree with you though that it doesn't sound like Verizon. I'm pretty sure theirs is ad-based regardless of site, not site-as-ad. This is actually the direction I always thought phones would go though. I figured it would be like cable - even though you pay for it, they still subject you to inescapable ads over and over to get the content you want. I figured our phones would start forcing ads in front of our eyes eventually regardless of our choices. Somebody else apparently has that idea too.