Finally: Annoying Open-App Ads Banned for Chinese Apps

Joey Knotts, Contributing Editor | Jul 12, 2021 12:05 pm | 2 comments | 535 reads

One of the more infuriating aspects of digital life in China has been the ads that pop-up whenever an app is opened, forcing users to way three to five seconds before using the app. Fortunately, this quirk is about to become a thing of the past – or, in many cases, it already is.

Late last week, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that it had already ordered app developers to do away with open-app ads, citing user’s “happiness and sense of security.” The order also took aim at misleading ads and pop-up ads with tiny and near-imperceptible close buttons, among other in-app advertising issues about which the ministry had been receiving numerous complaints.

According to the announcement, most major companies have already begun to comply, including Alibaba, Meituan, and Baidu. However, some users may find that certain apps need some time to get their act together – apparently, some developers had made the open-app ads such an integral part of the apps that they’ll need to do a full update to do away with them. In other cases, users may have to clear the cache or app data in order to live life open-app ad-free.

Our own investigations into a few of our favorite apps found that while Taobao and Meituan seem to have done away with the ads, Baidu Maps still displays an open app ad on iPhone, but not for Android. Let us know in the comments below whether you got different results!

Meanwhile, some commentators in the Chinese blogosphere pointed to unnecessary data collection permissions as the next target, citing cases of certain apps force-quitting if address book permissions are not granted. But given the recent Didi controversy, it seems that authorities are already leaping on this issue.

READ: Beijing News You Might Have Missed this Week

Image: Liu Yue

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BauLuo's picture BauLuo Submitted by Guest on Mon, 07/12/2021 - 14:24

All I can say is hallelujah!! Though I am still getting opening ads on Meituan, which however are quickly closable. On my weather app I still have sit and wait for the adds to close on their own, and thereafter get these tiny annoying things that flutter around and annoy me, and trying to hit the close button is a hit and miss affair. And If in fact am able to close them, they re-appear after a few seconds. On my translation app there is a screen, and even if I have clearly hit the close button, it immediately takes me to some online betting website or something like that, so I just have to wait 5 seconds for it to close. Really, really annoying.

I am Doktor Aethelwise Snapdragoon.

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