American cable firm Comcast has started pushing its own advertisements to users of its nationwide network of Wi-Fi hotspots.
As well as reminding consumers that they’re connected to Comcast’s Xfinity service, the company will promote certain products by injecting JavaScript into the portal pages that users must pass through to establish connections, gizmodo.com reports.
While some analysts have expressed concern that the move could fan the flames of the net neutrality debate, a spokesperson from Comcast claimed that the ad programme has been running for a number of months already.
Charlie Douglas, executive director of corporate communications at Comcast, said the promotional messages are likely to appear every seven minutes but will only be present for a matter of seconds.
Mr Douglas then went on to explain that the changes would only affect users of America’s public Xfinity hotspots, of which there are around 3.5 million. Customers who have Xfinity broadband set up at home will not see the adverts.
Comcast isn’t the first company to start advertising in this way; a number of US airports already put JavaScript into their hotspot portals for similar reasons. With 22 million customers, however, Comcast is the first provider of its size to adopt such an approach.
According to arstechnica.com, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is accepting public and industry comments on the net neutrality debate until September 15.
