This is awful.<p>But to understand why and how awful that is, you need to think of HTTP traffic as private letters. Unfortunately, because HTTP traffic is usually associated with access to public websites, a lot of laypeople think of it as _public_, instead of _private_ communication. Opening NYT website is more like browsing TV that having a correspondence with a trusted friend for them.<p>This is the real reason shit like this happens. Would you expect Vodafone to modify contents of your private facebook messages or emails, if they had the chance? Of course not; the same suits that authorized this system would scream about user&#x27;s privacy and never greenlight it. However, _this_ system, to an average user, and average manager, doesn&#x27;t seem the same.<p>If you imagine a high-level user story description for it, it won&#x27;t read &quot;new code is injected in private HTTP traffic&quot;, it likely was &quot;make pictures download faster in 3G&quot;. Yes, they describe the same awful shit that shouldn&#x27;t be happening — but the first description screams PRIVACY VIOLATION, while the second seems like a very good thing to do for the sake of the customers.<p>Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. And if you want to fight this, don&#x27;t fight it as you would fight malice. Fight as you would actually fight stupidity.