Carriers In the United States Want to Introduce "Screen Zero" Lock Screen Adverts to Cellphones

 Android smartphones can be a tough market, and carriers sometimes sell every square inch of a phone to the highest bidder in order to wring as much profit out of a phone as possible. Packed-in, uninstallable crapware programs clog up your app drawer and promote their services. Because the limits for packed-in applications are far lower than for Play Store apps, data-hungry firms like Facebook often pay for a location where they can more readily gather data.

Advertisements for "Screen Zero"

According to rumors, a new business is developing a more intrusive kind of crapware: lock screen advertisements. The business, "Glance," is a subsidiary of the Indian ad tech giant InMobi, and according to the article, the lock screen "content" provider "plans to deploy its lock screen platform on Android handsets in the US within two months."

Glance's app takes over the lock screen in full screen mode. It seems to be a general swipe-heavy social network, similar to TikTok or Snapchat Discover, however it only displays Glance content. Consider how annoying it would be if every time you switched on your phone, you were greeted with an auto-playing video from a popular off-brand TikToker. On its website, the corporation claims "unparalleled reach" and "genuine interaction" with its captive audience. InMobi's founder and CEO, Naveen Tewari, offered a pretty dismal explanation of his company's aim to Forbes India.

Of all, all of this is simply a giant ad vector. The company's third main navigation link is "Advertisers," where the business page offers "a friction-free campaign" on "screen zero"—the first screen customers view when they switch on their phones. A cursory look at Glance's "business" page reveals that it's difficult to tell what's sponsored material and what isn't. You will even see ads for apps such as Android to iPhone transfers and cryptocurrency.  

Glance also claims to be able to provide a massive amount of personal data to advertising for targeting and monitoring. It displays their demographics, location, interests selected in the app, language, and phone model. Glance is backed by Google. Glance cites Vivo, Motorola, Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, and Samsung as partners and claims to have ">80 percent reach on all new smartphones" in India.