Researcher catches AT&T injecting ads on free airport Wi-Fi hotspot

When computer scientist Jonathan Mayer was in Washington Dulles International Airport last week, he logged onto an AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot and soon noticed that websites were showing a lot more ads than usual. The website of Stanford University, where Mayer conducts security and privacy research, was showing ads for a jewelry store and AT&T.

"Last I checked, Stanford doesn’t hawk fashion accessories or telecom service. And it definitely doesn’t run obnoxious ads that compel you to wait," Mayer wrote in a blog post yesterday.

Ad-supported news sites like The Wall Street Journal had extra ads on top of them. Federal government websites were showing ads for both AT&T and other businesses.