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China's Ministry of State Security warned that foreign spy agencies are exploiting pop-up advertisements for intelligence collection, target identification and ideological infiltration, saying the activity poses a threat to national security.
The ministry, known as the MSS, issued the warning Sunday in an article and ordered relevant online platform operators to immediately stop providing advertising and promotional services for unidentified overseas links.
It also told operators to promptly block the spread of potential security risks.
The MSS said intrusive pop-up ads that appear when internet users open a webpage or launch an app are often difficult to skip and can lead to accidental clicks that redirect users to another page.
The ministry said this creates opportunities for criminals to exploit.
According to the MSS, some advertising companies use "personalized advertising recommendations" as a cover for collecting user data.
After a user clicks on a pop-up advertisement, the application transmits personal data, interest profiles and other information stored in its database back to the advertising company, the ministry said.
The advertising company then uses "microtargeting" algorithms to deliver personalized advertisements.
State security authorities recently found that foreign spy agencies had colluded with certain advertising companies to set up surveillance platforms, according to the MSS.
The ministry said those platforms integrated and analyzed data returned by advertising companies together with social media information, high-precision location data and other sources.
The MSS said the data was used to accurately identify targeted individuals' home addresses, workplaces and daily activity patterns, building comprehensive profiles of those individuals in order to prepare tailored strategies to induce them.
State security authorities also found that foreign intelligence agencies used pop-up ads containing links to anti-China websites, according to the ministry.
The MSS said the links bypassed China's internet regulatory system through nodes in neighboring regions and covertly distributed ideological infiltration content inside China's online environment.
The ministry said such activity posed a serious threat to state security.
The MSS said relevant authorities have, in recent years, issued regulations on pop-up information services and internet advertising.
The ministry said the regulations set clear institutional boundaries and require pop-up ads to be clearly labeled as advertisements and easily closed with one click.
Amid increasingly covert online infiltration tactics by foreign intelligence agencies, the MSS urged platforms and users to remain vigilant and take stronger precautions against potential compromise.
Zhu Wei, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law and a member of the Law and Ethics Committee at the China Advertising Association, told the Global Times that one flaw of pop-up ads is that the entity displaying the advertisement often does not review its content.
Zhu said users may also not know who placed the ads, creating opportunities for malicious actors to exploit the platform.
He suggested strengthening oversight by requiring demand-side platforms to review ad content, landing pages and safety.
Zhu also said display platforms should be held responsible for initial screening, rapid removal of problematic ads and reporting to relevant authorities.
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