What's the deal with visible QR codes appearing on digital ads?

Found my answer: https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/14hyn3n/pink_qrcode_li...

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/ios-ipados-release...

I found a reddit thread which claims it's related to this bug in iOS 17 Beta 2: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/ios-ipados-release...

I have seen this a lot lately. I am curious to understand how these are used and/or what benefit they provide?

drive by exploits

What happens if you take a photo of the ad? Does it takes you to the website?

I've not seen this before. Looks more like visual artefacting from a graphics processing error to me on first glance.

Where was this specific ad? Might try to find one in the wild myself?

If it is a QR code it seems like maybe some kind of proprietary watermarking tech to track ads for some very specific purpose. My phone either can't lock onto it or can't read it.

I see them all the time. Here’s an example on drudgereport. https://imgur.com/a/hOl9x2m

I am using an iPhone 13 browsing via chrome. iOS 17.0

Also occurs in safari