Motorola smartphones: Pre-installed app apparently injects affiliate links
A pre-installed app on Motorola smartphones redirects Amazon calls and injects affiliate codes. Affected users can disable the app.
(Image: Motorola)
A software update for the Smart Feed app, pre-installed on Motorola smartphones, redirects users through the browser when opening the Amazon app to inject affiliate codes. Owners of high-end devices like the Razr 60 Ultra are apparently also affected. The specific background remains unclear.
Injected Affiliate Codes
“I've noticed something strange on my Razr 60 Ultra recently: when I tried to open the Amazon app, the browser started instead and redirected me to a suspicious-looking URL that then forwarded me to amazon.com with a partner code,” reports Redditor Trypocopris.
To investigate further, Trypocopris used ADB Log to examine the smartphone's network traffic. This revealed that a series of requests were sent to the address “devicenative.com”. His suspicion: This site informs the program which apps to target and which affiliate codes to use. This process apparently originates from the Smart Feed app, which Motorola pre-installs on many of its smartphones.
“When you click on the app in the launcher, it intercepts the action and redirects you to their affiliate link. If I hadn't disabled the option 'Open links in app by default', I wouldn't have noticed anything was wrong,” the Redditor further writes.
Videos by heise
The blog 9to5Google can verify the Redditor's observation and also narrow down from which version of the Smart Feed app the affiliate links are injected: on a Razr (2026) with an older version of the app (v2.03.0056), this does not occur, but only with app version 2.03.0070 does the behavior appear.
Uncertainties
9to5Google investigated further and found that the traffic is redirected through a website that is reportedly connected to a fashion influencer. However, the discovered URL does not appear on Abboud's social channels, and the affiliate codes do not match her known ones, it is stated. The redirection from Motorola devices also uses the Amazon affiliate code “sramz-kff-008-20”, which differs from all codes the blog has found in the shared links and the influencer's linked websites.
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It is currently unclear who is behind this scheme and how the Smart Feed app could have been manipulated to inject the affiliate code. It is unclear whether Motorola is behind it. An error in a pre-installed advertising SDK could also have triggered this phenomenon. An inquiry from heise online to Motorola remained unanswered until the publication of the article.
Disabling
If the app is pre-installed on a device, users can disable it. To achieve this, open the settings, go to “Apps”, and search for “Smart Feed”. Then select “Disable” to stop the tracking.
(afl)
