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KDDI's Android customers getting ads in their notification bars

KDDI's Android customers getting ads in their notification bars

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Japanese carrier KDDI is using its AU One Market app, an alternative to Google's Android Market, to serve ads to customers' notification bars.

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Japan's second-largest carrier KDDI has apparently begun sending ads to some of its Android customers as push notifications. Recent updates to AU One Market — a KDDI-managed alternative to Google’s Android Market — are behind the ads, and while KDDI customers can opt out of the advertising "service," the app comes preinstalled and can't be removed, and users are rightfully upset at the provider for abusing its ability to send customers notifications.

AU One Market users are informed of the ads in the updates' terms and conditions, but the default "OK" at the end of the agreement gives the provider permission to send the ads, and tapping an alternate link in the body text is required to get out of receiving them. While this isn't the first case of apps sending ads to your notification bar — ad network Airpush has been doing it since Spring, 2011 — the idea of a carrier selling its customers out to advertisers is pretty outrageous.