Microsoft's Hidden Windows 8 Feature: Ads

MojoKid writes "Despite the fact that I've been using Windows 8 for the past three weeks, I somehow managed to overlook a rather stark feature in the OS: ads. No, we're not talking about ads cluttering up the desktop or login screen (thankfully), but rather ads that can be found inside of some Modern UI apps that Windows ships with. That includes Finance, Weather, Travel, News and so forth. On previous mobile platforms, such as iOS and Android, seeing ads inside of free apps hasn't been uncommon. It's a way for the developer to get paid while allowing the user to have the app for free. However, while people can expect ads in a free app, no one expects ads in a piece of software that they just paid good money for."

Comments

Kind of sleezy

[CastrTroy]

This kind of caught me off guard too. The music App started showing me ads, and not just little images off to the side, but full screen videos asking me to sign up for a subscription. I thought that the :"Music" app was what I was supposed to use to listen to the music I already owned. Not some nagware that tried to convince me to buy more music off the MS specific store. I promptly removed the music from my desktop after that and just went to download Winamp, since WMP and the new music app were completely unable to play FLAC files anyway. I can't see how MS isn't going to get in trouble for this one. If they got in trouble for doing it with browsers, which were mostly free anyway, even before they started including them, just think of how Apple is going to react to MS embedding a music store in the OS, or Steam is going to react to adding a games store in the OS.

Corporate IT is going to hate this

[davidwr]

One more reason to exercise "down"grade rights.