/GettyImages-140080223-15dacb100892440887176ba1efba6860.jpg "Ads Spotted in Google Verification Text Messages")
According to 9to5Google, Action Launcher developer Chris Lacy tweeted a photo on Monday of an actual two-factor authentication text message from Google with a VPN ad and included link at the end of it. Lacy said he asked for a verification code after a failed login attempt, so it wasn’t a random text, but Google Messages still flagged it as spam.
Getty Images/dcdp
Lacy received a slew of responses to his Tweet, and it appears that a phone carrier added the ad to the message, possibly as a very clever form of targeted advertising.
