Lock screen ads are coming to the US and they are disgusting

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US cellular carriers will soon use your phone’s lock screen to display ads, at least if this company has anything to do with it.

Glance has been steadily adding its tech to Android smartphones in Asia and is now about to launch a US expansion.

Google partly backs the company, along with Jio Platforms, India’s largest telecom. That’s a lot of weight behind another advertising company, which uses your most seen phone screen to serve ads.

Yes, we’re talking about your lock screen, which can put special offers or anything else with a call-to-action button. Check it out in the image below.

Anyone who’s used a Kindle with Special Offers knows the type of advertising that Glance can do. The difference here is that it can be applied to any Android handset. That’s a huge, untapped market in the US, and one that cellular carriers likely want to leverage.

In Asia, Glance is working directly with smartphone makers, like Vivo. Android Police reports that the feed on the lock screen and wallpaper only has a “few curated images” in Germany.

In India, the feed shows ads, news, live videos, and more, to over 200 million users. It’s like Apple News or Google Discover, but with much more paid content.

Glance is launching in the next couple of months, according to TechCrunch‘s reporting. That means we don’t have long to wait to find out which US carriers are on board.

Will it be low-cost carriers, like Boost Mobile, or will it be the big trio of T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T? We’ll know soon.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.