Live tile spam...HELP, ads are being pinned to my start screen!

[OhNokiaDidnt]

I was an early adopter of WP7, and WP8. I currently have a Lumia 1020 on AT&T.

On Monday, I noticed that there was a tile pinned to the bottom of my start screen for a music album. I assumed that I had accidentally done it while browsing the marketplace or Nokia Mix Radio. I unpinned it and forgot about it. That is until a few days later, when I noticed another unwelcome tile pinned to the bottom of my start screen. This time it was a 2-sided tile advertising the upcoming moving "Ride Along." When I tapped it, it brought me to what seemed to be the Bing page for the movie. I am 100% certain that I did not accidentally pin this tile. In fact, I barely used my phone the day it happened.

This week I had only installed 2 new apps, both were paid apps which I purchased the full versions of, the apps were Cal (calendar app) and Amazing Weather HD. The only other apps I have (aside from the Nokia and Microsoft apps) are Rowi, Baconit, Trivia Buff, Amazon, eBay, IMDB, Facebook Beta, and Connectivity Shortcuts. I don't have any games.

I assume that one of two things is happening, and I am hoping someone can shed some light on it.

1)Microsoft or Nokia is pushing pinned tiles to customers (this would be a PR nightmare, and when I live chatted with Microsoft today they assured me this wasn't the case)

2)I have a rogue app that is looking for a little extra ad revenue, and is pinning tiles hoping no one will notice (I would assume this violates marketplace/developer policies, the live chat rep also thought this)

Below are screen shots of the most recent incident, I didn't get any of the music album before I deleted it.

 

[btbam91]

Wow. I've never seen that before.

 

[rockstarzzz]

Its probably one of your movie apps - in app tiles. MSFT or WP8 or Nokia does not pin spam, this isn't Android. If this thread leads to any sort of FUD, I'll come back to do what's needed. I'll give this one a benefit of doubt for now but rest assured, it is definitely not any store apps that automatically pin themselves and its not the OS either.

 

[OhNokiaDidnt]

The only movie app I have is imdb, and I don't have it pinned. In fact I keep my start screen to the basics, only about 15 tiles. I am savvy enough to only enable a live tile I truly want.

I should note that the live chat supervisor brought it to their technical engineer team, I have a verification email of that, and will update as I hear back. I am not sure what you meant by FUD.

I love my phone, and am a huge advocate of the WP8 platform and am a low level developer. I am not trying to be negative, I just feel like there may be an app doing this unsolicited, and want to get to the bottom of it...if you want me to investigate somewhere else I can, no harm intended, I have always trusted the users and content here and wanted the expertise. Sorry if it came across wrong.

 

[foxbat121]

Do you use IE on the phone? I'm pretty sure you can (accidentally) ping web pages to home screen.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[OhNokiaDidnt]

Do you use IE on the phone? I'm pretty sure you can (accidentally) ping web pages to home screen.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I do, I will run through my page history and see id anything matches up...but I don't use it too often.

 

[sahib lopez]

Maybe ( worst case scenario ) your MSFT account could of been hacked? I know that far fetched but maybe if you did a proxy to install apps could the person on the other end use that to spam your home screen with tiles ? rly:

 

[OhNokiaDidnt]

Maybe ( worst case scenario ) your MSFT account could of been hacked? I know that far fetched but maybe if you did a proxy to install apps could the person on the other end use that to spam your home screen with tiles ? rly:

Could be, but doubtful... I use two-factor authentication and the authenticator app.

 

[sahib lopez]

Could be, but doubtful... I use two-factor authentication and the authenticator app.

Maybe you can check what apps you downloaded a week ago a...uninstall that or those app and see if you get those pinned apps.

 

[Dadstar0410]

I was able to replicate. Everybody, do this for the sake of experimentation; press search, swipe to movies, press Ride Along, press Pin to Start. That must've been what happened.

 

[OhNokiaDidnt]

That is crazy!!!! Thanks for helping me figure it out. I never use the movie part of the search, I have a feeling my 2 year old must have gotten ahold of my phone. Much appreciated, I was pretty worked up thinking it was spam.

 

[sahib lopez]

I was able to replicate. Everybody, do this for the sake of experimentation; press search, swipe to movies, press Ride Along, press Pin to Start. That must've been what happened.

yeah I did it and it did the same thing good job on finding that

 

[Dadstar0410]

That is crazy!!!! Thanks for helping me figure it out. I never use the movie part of the search, I have a feeling my 2 year old must have gotten ahold of my phone. Much appreciated, I was pretty worked up thinking it was spam.

Use Kids' Corner bro

 

[Citizen X]

I have a feeling my 2 year old must have gotten ahold of my phone.

Cool. Your kid is big Ice Cube fan?

 

[Jazmac]

Its probably one of your movie apps - in app tiles. MSFT or WP8 or Nokia does not pin spam, this isn't Android. If this thread leads to any sort of FUD, I'll come back to do what's needed. I'll give this one a benefit of doubt for now but rest assured, it is definitely not any store apps that automatically pin themselves and its not the OS either.

Must be user error.