How IRCTC turned a complaint against obscene ads into a funny digital moment

Imagine this, you are trying to book railway tickets on IRCTC’s website or app and suddenly obscene ads appear on the page. This is something that a user faced recently and he decided to complain about it – where else – on Twitter. “Obscene and vulgar ads are very frequently appearing on the IRCTC ticket booking app. This is very embarrassing and irritating,” the user complained and he also tagged the Railway Ministry, IRCTC and till recently the Railway Minister Piyush Goyal. 

Instead of ignoring the complaint, IRCTC decided to reply to it, which subtly put the onus of obscene ads appearing on the complainant himself. This is what Indian Railways Seva tweeted back: “IRCTC uses Google’s ad serving tool ADX for serving ads. These ads use cookies to target the user. Based on user history and browsing behaviour, ads are shown. Please clean and delete all browser cookies and history to avoid such ads.” 

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What IRCTC pointed out that the obscene ads were appearing not because of any problem with the app or lack of a filter for such ads, but because of the complainant’s search history, thereby subtly implying that he was probably surfing pornographic content!  

Obscene and vulgar ads are very frequently appearing on the IRCTC ticket booking app. This is very embarrassing and irritating @RailMinIndia @IRCTCofficial @PiyushGoyalOffc kindly look into. pic.twitter.com/nb3BmbztUt

— Anand Kumar (@anandk2012) May 29, 2019

Irctc uses Googles ad serving tool ADX for serving ads.These ads uses cookies to target the user. Based on user history and browsing behaviour ads are shown. Pl clean and delete all browser cookies and history to avoid such ads .

-IRCTC Official

— Indian Railways Seva (@RailwaySeva) May 29, 2019

IRCTC is not known for its sassy responses, but this one time, it created much mirth in the digital space.