Ah yes one of the reasons why GrafeneOS will support Motorola devices soon /s
They won’t get away with that sort of sh*t when they’re selling with GrapheneOS on them- assuming that deal continues to make progress.
The only mobile OS worth using at this point is Graphene if you ask me.TLDW?
Why should anyone install the amazon app? I mean… it’s a website (if one realy must…)
Amazon is a computer activity for sure. But I try not to use it at all. I’ve been fairly successful cutting them out of my life.
I actually find the app is very nice compared to the mobile website on a pixel 9, of course I’m on GrapheneOS so I can enjoy apps from shitty companies without worrying too much about it doing shady things.
Although as of the past week, they’ve been injecting a shop with Alexa ad when you first open the app that slows you down by a few seconds, which is extremely infuriating.
I’m one of those shitty human beings who, unfortunately, orders fairly often from Amazon.
Even worse. The Amazon app is trash that sometimes doesn’t work at all, but the Amazon website works well on mobile.
Tldr? How?
…
An app update on Motorola phones has started hijacking the Amazon app for the sake of injecting an affiliate code. To do that, tapping the app icon opens the user’s browser and immediately redirects to the Amazon app. It’s a “blink and you missed it” moment. This only happens when the user opens the Amazon app from the app drawer – not the homescreen pages.
…
We verified on a Razr (2026) running an older Smart Feed v2.03.0056 that this does not happen. Our Razr Fold, with app version 2.03.0070, has started showing this behavior, so it’s the latest update that’s to blame for hijacking the user’s intent. We couldn’t replicate this on a Moto G Stylus (2026) running the same app version, though. Sideloading the app, for reasons unclear, doesn’t seem to trigger this behavior, as manually installing the updated version on the aforementioned Razr (2026) didn’t show the same behavior.
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.
That sounds more like a phone got hit with malware than it necessarily being Motorola doing it. The same version of the app on multiple systems or side loading the suspicious version didn’t trigger the behavior, so I’m doubtful the app itself is to blame.
Yeah but the app developer is Motorola. So unless they have had a breach (they’d like to tell us about) the call is coming from inside the house.
If “the call is coming from inside the house”, why is it so specific/not very reproducible across the same app version and different methods of installing/accessing the app?
This is exactly why I said the bit about ‘unless there’s a breach’.
There’s another comment on one of these threads that goes in depth about who the affiliate link supposedly belongs to, even though it doesn’t match any of their known affiliate links, and it would appear that the affiliate link doesn’t actually belong to Motorola (that anyone has been able to prove so far).
All that being said, Motorola is the developer of the app so if they pushed an update that causes this, then they are on the hook. Whether or not they are behind the affiliate link or there’s some kind of MIM/malware or similar attack remains to be seen. Unfortunately we live in a time where app repos are being compromised left and right so with the limited information in the article this was my view of the situation.
Whether or not they are behind the affiliate link or there’s some kind of MIM/malware or similar attack remains to be seen. Unfortunately we live in a time where app repos are being compromised left and right so with the limited information in the article this was my view of the situation.
I understand what you’re saying, I’m saying the information we have doesn’t fit the behavior you’re equating this to.
Given they only had the issue when accessing it via the moto app drawer app on a limited number of phones and didn’t see it when side loading or loading the app from another store, that is evidence against an app compromise and is closer to the behavior seen in local compromises. Were this an app level compromise as you’re suggesting, the behavior wouldn’t disappear on different devices or when side loaded.
I could easily be wrong, I just don’t see the behavior I’d expect to see for a wide ranging own like a repo takeover.
Seems like their parent company hasn’t learned anything since the whole Superfish nonsense all those years ago. Glad I’ve stayed far away from them all this time.
Stock ROMs are removed immediately when obtaining a new phone
Isn’t Motorola the new msnufacturer for those GraphineOS phones? And now they do THIS???
Kinda makes them feel less trustworthy to install a security based rom on.
I said this in another comment, but the same app version being loaded on multiple phones and it doesn’t affect all of them, or side loading the app, or launching from a home screen all can bypass the issue, so it sounds more like malware than corporate fuckery.
It’s app level injection, so presumably if you install GrapheneOS or use a different “smart feed app” (some kind of launcher for Motorola? I haven’t used one before), it won’t affect the user. Although, I agree it’s a pretty bad look on the QA of preloaded apps.
Ive been with Pixel for a while and was looking forward to my next phone being a Motorola but this is NOT a good look at all
From reading the article, the conclusion right now is that this isn’t a conscious act by Motorola.
My guess is they used an open source library in their Smart Feed app that has been poisoned with an affiliate link injection. Either that or someone working at Motorola slipped the code in and their quality control process missed it.
Neither one of those is a good look for Motorola. But it probably isn’t as bad as the headline makes it sounds.
On a side note, I ditched the increasingly shoddy Pixel a series for a mid-level Motorola phone a couple of years ago and haven’t looked back.
Ive got a Pixel 8 Pro with GOS and I love it
I can’t speak for the pro series. I had as Pixel 1 that was very good.
But then for cost and headphone jack reasons I switched to the a series when my Pixel 1 died. Both I and friends and family have had various Pixel ‘a’ series phones, and we’ve all seen the quality get progressively worse. Batteries, gyros, cameras, screens, you name it. I wouldn’t recommend that specific line of phones.
Thirded! Switched a few weeks back. Feels good to be able to fight in whatever little way that I can. Though one of my bank apps stopped working so that’s kind of a pain in the ass.
How awful was moving your data? I’ve been wanting to switch, but my big hesitation is all my 2fa apps cuz I really don’t want to have to reach out to all my clients to redo those…
Wait, why can’t you just export and import the TOTP data? You shouldn’t need to notify any of the providers…
I thought it didn’t let me, but this may just be PEBKAC…
Seconded, though the sooner I’m able to get GrapheneOS on another phone, the better, as Google’s quality plunge after the Pixel 5 series was just inexcusable.
Edit: Actually, pretty much almost every Pixel phone has had some major hardware defect, including the ones before the 6 series.
The question is if the next gos phone will have a competitive camera quality in order to be a viable alternative for more people than only “high targets”
I’ve had nothing but good experiences with my pixel 9, what stands out to you?
My Pixel 8 Pro has been the best of the Pixel phones I’ve had, but Google’s phone hardware is rough. Contrary to my previous point, my Pixel 4 XL had the bloated battery issue, and I had to give that up for the 6 Pro, which had the shittiest Tensor chip leading to overheating and lack of reception in areas where I should have full bars. Gave that up for the 8 Pro, and it hasn’t had any significant hardware issues so far.
So yeah, Google hardware sucks, and I’m thrilled to potentially be moving to a new Moto phone that has a Snapdragon chip and improved hardware quality.
I have a Pixel 7 from a couple years ago. Its simply an inferior product compared to other mobiles on the market. The higher price could be a more regional issue perhaps but mine still has problems with fingerprint scanner, sim issues, heating problems etc.
The only reason I bought it was for the unlocked boot loader and grapheneos.
Pixel 7 still had problems with fingerprint reader, Pixel 9 doesn’t
Haven’t had any malfunctions on the pixel 9 at all, but I immediately installed grapheneOS and put it in a case. Maybe because I didn’t grab it at launch I dodged a bullet? Odd.
Motorola is Lenovo, they are chinese. Of course they would try shenanigans like these to see if it sticks. Like I saw in my G23 with the Live Screen Locks shit, even we disabled it it would still change the screen lock wallpaper to a live one, had to remove the package from the user with adb.
Wao, what a narrow-minded way to look at it. Lenovo is Chinese, yeah, and only the largest laptop manufacturer in the world. The one manufacturer that has been historically Linux friendly. Are their CPUs Chinese developed? No, they are US made (Intel and AMD), which is arguably as bad, maybe even worse.
Lenovo used to bundle Israeli-made spyware with Windows for some of their laptops. Not exactly a trustworthy company tbh. Not necessarily politically aligned with the CCP on every decision but they’re not above spying on their customers clearly.
the fact that they are chinese isn’t relevant here, since such fraudulent practices have been seen on Brave Browser too, for example.
Somehow feels like manipulating media now that android lockdown draws near and graphene os + motorola is one of the few fighting it
Good thing I don’t use Amazon.
Shitty behavior on the part of Moto.
On the other hand, installing GOS gets rid of this issue. I’ll likely still buy a Moto if I have the option of installing GOS myself. I wouldn’t trust Moto to not add something to a pre-installed GOS.
Motorola primarily makes budget phones, mostly because they’re full of malware like this. Same reason some companies will offer phones and TVs completely free.
Unfortunately privacy is expensive. And the GOS phone will be as well.
Not sure what happened, possibly some mim, i dont think Motorola would risk reputational damage for a merely few $ through such low level highjack.
I dont think it any ill will here by Motorola.
Did they just not see the backlash and class actions filed against PayPal/Honey, CapitalOne, etc. for this same affiliate code swapping scheme and just decided they’d do it anyway? Surely they had to have seen that, or did they think it was a good idea done blatantly and are trying to be sneakier about it?
Any chances to block that at DNS level with something like a pi hole or NextDNS ?
I don’t think it even needs to get that complicated.
Until they issue a patch you can just open the Amazon app from the home screen. It only does the affiliate nonsense when you launch it from the app list.
Also, you can disable the Smart Feed app. That apparently fixes it too.
Sure, the domain is listed in the article. Most blocklists include affiliate and tracking passthrough domains already.
No
