Comcast adds popups to web pages

For the past few days, I’ve been getting what I assumed were random fake popup ads about Xfinity when I visit various web pages.

But it turns out they weren’t fake, and they weren’t ads.

Turns out there are two things I didn’t know about my cable internet service:

  • It’s a limited data plan. If I use more than 1TB of data in a month, I get charged extra. (For details, see their FAQ.) This month, I used more than a terabyte because I backed up my whole computer to Backblaze.
  • Comcast can insert popups into web pages that you view in your browser.

I’m surprised and perturbed by both of these things.

In this particular case, my data overage came at the very end of the month, and they give two months of grace, so they’re not charging me any extra. And I’m probably unlikely to use a TB of data again. So the outcome for me is okay this time. But I’m creeped out by Comcast inserting popups into web pages that I view. Especially because they look like fake ads to me, of a type that I’ve seen many times before (and those ones were definitely fake).

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