Airtel, one of the biggest Indian ISPs, is intercepting HTTP requests to display ads

http://blog.uncool.in/2009/02/26/airfail/

by GeneralMaximus • 17 years ago

36 14 17 years ago

blog.uncool.in

liuliu• 17 years ago

ISPs in China have done this for years (3 years, as I can recall). Now, they found a more efficient way: intercepting http requests and injecting Google Adsense click in any web pages.

hardik2• 17 years ago

"google adsense click" as in they force send users to the advertisement link? That's huge!

josefresco• 17 years ago

I don't think that's what he meant. Google would lock that shit down quick if it was true.

hardik2• 17 years ago

Sify has been doing something similar from years. There, for every GB or so of bandwidth one day of the package is reduced.

chiffonade• 17 years ago

American ISPs have been doing this with failed DNS lookups for years.

statictype2• 17 years ago

Funny, I have an Airtel broadband connection but have not seen that. However I suspect the reduction of bandwidth on unlimited schemes is correct.

wallflower• 17 years ago

In the US, some of the most egregious bandwidth users use the equivalent of $10K+/month in bandwidth.

g__g• 17 years ago

Even I have not seen this yet but I have heard about the reduction of bandwidth even on the so called "unlimited" offers. I thought Airtel was the only decent ISP left in India, but they also seem to be messing things up.

And btw these ads are not gonna help them sell their insanely expensive DTH services. Also the lack of understanding of the technology among their customer care executives is shocking!

anuraggoel• 17 years ago

This is not surprising. The concept of customer service in India is very different from what we accept as the norm in the States. Indian businesses have always treated consumers like crap. The socio-economic reasons for this are beyond the scope of this post, but I do want to point out some examples to illustrate the general attitude, and help align the frame of reference better.

My mother lives in New Delhi and often visits me in the States. She still can’t get over how easy it is to return stuff to stores here. In India, once you’ve purchased something, it’s yours for life. You can’t get a refund if you are not 'completely satisfied with your purchase’. Keep or trash; there is no ‘like’. This applies even if the product is defective. If you are lucky, or willing to yell at the store manager, you might get store credit.

You don’t like the movie selection on Delta? I once flew a ‘discount carrier’ from Bangalore to Delhi and had to stare at a 6" display ad for a refrigerator three hours straight, because it was pasted on the back of the headrest in front of me, and the seat next to me, and every other seat on the plane.

If your server in a San Francisco restaurant isn’t friendly, you give the restaurant two stars on Yelp. In India, if my server is friendly, I have reason to be suspicious. Surprisingly, I have seen this attitude towards customer service even in Indian stores and restaurants in the Bay Area. Note: if you’re white, your Indian server in an Indian restaurant is more likely to be friendly and hospitable. Not so much if you’re Indian, perhaps because they know you know, or perhaps because awe of the ‘white-skinned colonizing foreigner’ is still deeply entrenched in our culture.

Airtel, and pretty much all wireless carriers in India often send you ‘free’ text messages advertising their newest ring tones, pricing schemes and partner offers. "AT&T does that too!" you say, but not twenty-five times a day. I don’t know if people even understand the concept of opting out.

Let’s talk about less superficial issues - landlines stop working arbitrarily. There are times when I can’t reach my mother because her phone (and hence DSL) service has been knocked out by rain or wind or the latest ‘big dig’. Even when the phone lines work, DSL doesn’t work well and VoIP is spotty. Hour-long power outages are common. Four hour outages are even more common (and I'm talking big cities here). Running water around the clock? Only for the tiny new economic class that gets written about in the New York Times. I think it was the mid-nineties, when I heard about a week-long power outage in a Delhi neighborhood and the consequent lynching of local power grid officials by an irate mob.

Having grown up in the Indian middle-class, I am used to bad customer service, though I must admit the States is softening me. So when I see complaints about Airtel intercepting client HTTP requests, I can empathize, but it makes me wonder about much bigger customer service issues that never make it to the front page of HN.

statictype2• 17 years ago

Interesting that you mention phone companies. Because that's one area where I feel India is far superior to what you get in America. American phone companies are always trying to shaft the customer with lock-in on phones and monopolistic pricing. In India, the competition is much more healthy. I've generally been satisfied\impressed with Airtel's customer service. I can only remember one instance in the last 4 years when my internet access went down - it was for half a day and was out all over south India. Maybe I'm just an edge case.

But with retail and restaurants in general, yes, consumers get better treatment in America than probably anywhere else.

GeneralMaximus• 17 years ago

I was the one who submitted the original story (<shameless>that's my own blog</shameless>), so I have reasons to be very angry right now, but I don't quite agree with what you said there.

I have lived in New Delhi all my life, and I've seen this city grow. I remember the regular power outages, but that was some 5 or 6 years ago. The power still goes out, but it's a very rare incident. In fact, people of my age are rather surprised when that happens. My parents are, of course, unfazed because they've lived in times when it was considered disturbing when the power didn't go out after every few hours.

I've been with Airtel for about two years now, and so far I've experienced just two problems with my connection, both of which were fixed within hours. I remember the roads being flooded with water and school being cancelled when I was a kid, but that doesn't happen anymore (no matter how hard I wish ;)). MTNLs landlines are the only constant many Indians know in life. Come whatever may, your trusty old MTNL will always work. (MTNL's customer service, OTOH, treats you like shit.)

I wonder how my experiences will compare with those of other Indians. I live in a great neighbourhood in one of the better areas of New Delhi.

medianama• 17 years ago

Shame on you. I wish I could down vote your comment.

What is your contribution to the place where you were born? Please don't criticize, if you cannot contribute

axiom• 17 years ago

Rogers, the largest Canadian ISP, will redirect you to a page filled with their ads if you try to access a domain name that doesn't exist.

strider24• 17 years ago

How much do you guys pay for your internet connection per month? What is the speed that you get and where do you live?

Me? Rs.750 (around $15), 256kbps (Airtel), India (Bangalore).

Airtel, one of the biggest Indian ISPs, is intercepting HTTP requests to display ads

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