I’d like to start things off by saying that I’m not a big fan of ads. They typically get in the way of the content I’m trying to consume. That being said, I run a technology blog that relied of ads to generate revenue to pay my bills and the other writers who contribute to the site.

If you own an HTC One M9 or HTC One M8, you may have noticed an “ad” pop up as a notification on your phone a few days back. One of HTC’s content partners created a new theme to promote the upcoming Fantastic Four movie and HTC pushed it out as a notification to the HTC One M9 and HTC One M8.

When I saw the notification, I was intrigued. HTC had informed us that it was planning to feature sponsored content within BlinkFeed, Themes and its Recommended Apps folder eventually. The notification was clearly labeled as a new theme which could be downloaded from the Themes app, but it did feature a large banner image promoting the August 7th theatrical release of Fantastic Four (a movie I’m planning to watch). I clicked the notification, downloaded the new theme and applied it to my phone. Since I’m not a HUGE Fantastic Four fan, I changed the theme for the following morning and went about my day.

A few hours later, the world was ending! Every technology site on the web was writing about HTC’s new ad notifications, painting HTC as an evil villain. Really? The articles claimed HTC’s sponsored notification was “despicable,” “disgusting,” “poor taste,” and “money hungry,” – upsetting ALL HTC One M9 owners.

After the dust had settled, I asked our social media followers if they had been upset by the Fantastic Four notification. The overwhelming response was “no.” Most people who answered our questions said that they even clicked on the notification to check out the new theme. A few even claimed that the notification was a good thing since they had never even opened the Themes app on their phone. It’s funny how things get blown out of proportion simply because technology journalists want to write a story that they know will generate a lot of traffic.

Personally, I don’t want to be bombarded by ads on my phone, but HTC’s tact didn’t bother me in the least. I honestly hope that HTC can find more content partners to develop more themes for it platform, making it even more appealing to the consumer.

What’s you’re take on HTC’s sponsored notification scandal?