Motorola phones have started hijacking the Amazon app to insert affiliate codes

Think how bad the market got. Today we have preinstalled garbage apps like LinkedIn, garbage apps mandated to be preinstalled by the government, ads, cloud accounts, notifications spam, telemetry. This is not only Chinese smartphones, for example Samsung also plays this game. I assume there are Chinese backdoors, American backdoors and national government backdoors on almost every phone.

And there seems to be no way to buy a "free" smartphone without Google Services and telemetry below $250. Why 250? Because free OS have multiple bugs and issues and it is not rational to pay more than that.

I am considering two options, one, try to clean up and patch the firmware for a cheap smartphone (remove almost everything proprietary including Google Services, Unrusted Execution Environment, except for basic GUI and launcher), or two, port something like Lineage OS to my phone. Also I need to examine the network traffic and scan for potential weak points like SUID binaries. It is scary to think how much time I will have to waste for this.

Also, it is pretty stupid, in my opinion, to make an OS not based on Android, for example, use Qt for GUI, because there will be no apps for it.

> In further digging, we noticed that the URL the phone opens up is “kira-abboud.com,” a website that references fashion influencer “@kirasfashionfinds.” Notably, this exact URL isn’t listed anywhere on Abboud’s social media, and the affiliate codes don’t match up either. The redirect coming from Motorola phones is using Amazona affiliate code “sramz-kff-008-20” which is completely different from any of the codes we saw from links shared by Abboud’s accounts and linked websites.

Something funny is up; this doesn't seem deliberate.

Note that the smart feed "feature" is Taboola-provided adware[0] so it's par for the course. It's beyond comprehension Lenovo would trash the brand by shipping it on flagships.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/motorola/comments/1s61usi/edge_60_p...

I used to choose Motorola devices for a long time but since 2 years when I bought Edge 30 Fusion I started to notice they automatically (without my knowledge) add 3 stupid apps or games about two times a month :/ There is no way to stop it. My kids phones are stuffed with this sh*t.

Its a source of revenue that doesn't harm the user and cannot be disabled by the user. It's the gold standard.

Hmm, this thread and the reports of shady practices make me wonder if this will affect the partnership with GrapheneOS[1]. It seems that such things shouldn't really happen on a device where security is a top priority, whether intentional or not.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47214645

I've a Xiaomi phone on which twice appeared obviously debug/hello-world notifications (something like "testtest111") from apps I've never seen or installed. Then another time all Xiaomi phones of close relatives started getting these cheap, spammy ads for Android games in the notifications, this time from some obscure system app: had to look up on reddit that there are settings that disable this specific behavior.

The degree to which I don't own my own device is insane.

Since Uber, Airbnb and Tesla, now every company thinks they can do borderline illegal stuff to make an extra buck.

What is next? Our banks selling our payment histories to the highest bidder?

This bodes well for the up-coming GrapheneOS cooperation..

Nothing screams "secure" better than app hijacking and url injections.

Vertical videos converted to 16:9 are bad for your readers, Mr Senior Editor.

> Ben Schoon is a Senior Editor

Thank you so much for being not able to consume the screencast video in the article.

Isn't this cookie stuffing? Same modus operandi using by Geo-something widget back in 2000s with hidden ebay affiliate links that got caught by FBI. Someone should go in jail for this.

With the digital wellbeing app feature it is possible to set a timer of 0 minutes on all auto-installed and auto-reenabling apps to effectively disabling it for good.

Edit: the timer stays even after updates so the app is not enabled again

Notice that this will pass Play Integrity while your clean rom won't.

I have a Motorola G70, so this is concerning. But its hard to believe that this is a deliberate action by Motorola. To me it seems more likely that an update was compromised. Still bad though.

I like the Stylus G better than most phones I've owned, but Motorola really needs to end its partnership with the offensive "Glance" ad platform. There should not be a third party app like that which keeps re-enabling and reinstalling on every update. I don't understand what Motorola would get out of a partnership with a scammy third rate ad market that would be worth pissing off so many of their customers, but maybe they have some high level corruption in the company.

The comments here say that all Android phone manufacturers do stuff like this. I have never noticed that kind of things on my Fairphone. But then again, I don't have many apps and certainly not Amazon.

Yeah, I miss the days of multiple choices on mobile phone OSes.

Is Motorola Chinese by any chance? I remember the Motorola company has been split to phones and the rest

This is why we need to fight for the right to unlock the bootloader, not only on flagships.

Chinese brands always pull this stuff

To think I was worried about buying a Xiaomi tablet while already using a Motorola.

Gonna flash a rom on the Xiaomi anyway, but all oems are doing this type of stuff.

This is really unethical, replacing original app shortcuts breaks trust.

How low can you go?

It is laborious to go through all the apps on a phone and dissable the default unessesary "open web link" feature on ALL the apps, but apparently it has some effect in reducing the "draft" from all the back doors

That begs the question! Did they use a Sony rootkit ? XD

[dead]

I was possibly thinking of getting a Motorola with G.ràphenéOS when released.

Yeah, not now.

Calling this "hijacking the Amazon app" is hyperbolic in my opinion. They replaced the shortcut in the app drawer. To me this looks like normal scummy OEM behaviour, like pre-installing spyware, "anti-" malware, adware etc. which sadly pretty much every mobile/computer manufacturer does.

Replacing the OS is one of the first things I do with every laptop, PC and mobile device to get rid of (most) crap that was installed without my consent.

If an anti-worker company is getting fleeced, nothing wrong with that.

I hope motorola collaborates with Pine and brings linux to phones. In the age of LLM apps are obviously not a problem. (Hopefully windows Phone 7, not 8 also comes back)