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It’s worse. I have personal knowledge from a lot client work in this space. There are companies offering some basic functions like “wayfinding” so the retailer

It’s worse. I have personal knowledge from a lot client work in this space. There are companies offering some basic functions like “wayfinding” so the retailer or mall wants to give wayfinding to the user in their app. Sounds good, in fact it’s cheap, and they will even handle the beacon deployment... hook up sdk to wireshark and find it sending lots of data, some of it comes to me (retailer api) but a metric ton of it is going back to the provider. Being able to see the installed solution in multiple retailers and seeing the app code you start to notice persistence between them... retailer and mall didn’t even ask for this. They just wanted wayfinding.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago
Yes that's exactly how this gets implemented in practice. I did quite a bit of client work here too, specifically around using already existing surveillance camera networks to build user profiles. At the end of the day the goal is to optimize for the intersection of "what the user wants" and "what we want to sell." So, a low collection system will give bad recommendations and a really good recommendation system will have an immense amount about the user. Now that I talk with people on the other side of this, it's clear that most don't really care as long as they are getting good suggestions. I had this conversation just a few weeks ago with a young lady and her take was: "It's kind of creepy, but if it gives me good suggestions, I don't really care."
- ganoushoreilly 7y ago
  I've used systems that leverage passive detection of Bluetooth, Wifi, and other radio signals as an indicator. No Apps required. Tying beacons into points of authentication (login from workspace) or transactional data at a register. A large portion of it was actually focused around security and not product marketing, but the tech is the same.
  - brianpayne2 7y ago
    Does the BT detection work the same way that WiFi access point scanning works? I know that app developers use this WiFi tech from a client (device) side to determine location, but I am a bit disturbed about the aspect of this being so accurate with BT devices.
    - ganoushoreilly 7y ago
      Yes passive signal detection behaves like this. Apple uses passive and active Bluetooth in their stores to determine what products you are looking at.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    Tying beacons into points of authentication Reminds me of an old Mac application from PowerPC days that would sense your phone's Bluetooth coming into the room and automatically unlock your computer. I thought it was pretty cool. Current Macs have that possibility built-in, but it only works with the Watch.
    - codezero 7y ago
      There are still some open source solutions for this out there to do it with general Bluetooth.
    - dpkonofa 7y ago
      >Current Macs have that possibility built-in, but it only works with the Watch. Maybe built-in to the OS. You can definitely do this with any Bluetooth device and any Mac with both free and paid software.
    - aaronjmandel 7y ago
      I use MacID app on my iOS device to quickly wake my OSx machine via Bluetooth and authenticate w touchID. I think it's pretty slick. Not for the security crucial installation but fine for home.
- MrBuddyCasino 7y ago
  > "It's kind of creepy, but if it gives me good suggestions, I don't really care." This is an Unpopular Opinion, but IMHO thats kind of a reasonable stance to take.
  - elipsey 7y ago
    You could say the same thing about any externality.
  - navigatesol 7y ago
    >This is an Unpopular Opinion, but IMHO thats kind of a reasonable stance to take. I disagree. The recommendation is immediate and apparent to the end-user. The negative potential uses/consequences of all the other data collection are not. It's funny, but when an unsuspecting person gets a home loan they can't possibly afford pushed on them by a shifty mortgage broker, people here cry bloody murder. But when people ignorantly consent to having their data harvested for the pleasure of better targeted advertising, the tech community happily says "but they asked for it!"
    - MegaButts 7y ago
      > But when people ignorantly consent to having their data harvested for the pleasure of better targeted advertising, the tech community happily says "but they asked for it!" What? I feel like the only topic the tech community gets worked up about that nobody else cares about is digital privacy. There are always people on hacker news condemning a lack of privacy and targeted ads - I'd venture it's the majority of people on this site that feel that way.
    - skinnymuch 7y ago
      All Reddit twitter and HN do is complain about data privacy and ads. It’s the complete opposite of ever being “they asked for it”. Can you find any big thread with more than a few small comments Resembling “they asked for it”? I can give you tons of examples for data privacy and anti ad stances. Just go to any FB thread. Or even this thread.
  - jethro_tell 7y ago
- pariahHN 7y ago
  Part of the problem I think is that these people don't actually comprehend what is happening and the possible consequences. To them it's just a magic black box.
  - fingerlocks 7y ago
    Maybe I’m one of these people. What exactly are the consequences? So far, the most damaging consequence of overreaching customer privacy is the famous teenage pregnancy leak when Target sent out coupon mailers to expecting moms based on shopping history. That’s a really weirdly specific issue, and hard to imaging a similar scenario that would affect my life in some equally horrible way. Am I missing something? Why should I be so afraid of Home Depot or whatever knowing a little bit about me?
    - dpkonofa 7y ago
      It's not that you should necessarily be afraid of it but rather that you should be more aware of it. Advertising is now weaponized to the point that companies can take advantage of people through psychological tricks to get them to disadvantage themselves just to make a sale. Imagine the housing crisis amped up to an order of magnitude. Transactions, theoretically, should be based on good faith from both parties. If a business has far more insight into you than you have into them, though, then nearly every transaction has the potential to be predatory.
    - LamaOfRuin 7y ago
      As a more serious and well-known concrete threat, this type of data is regularly aggregated by data brokers, and then used by stalkers and domestic abusers to commit crimes. I imagine it being available and cheaply for sale is also a boon for various financial crimes/fraud. It's not home depot specifically to be worried about knowing a little about you, but about them not being competent to control that data and everyone's little bit becoming a lot more significant and dangerous when combined. edit: Also, the same type of information can easily be used later by government. I imagine if Uyghurs were not being specifically targeted by the Chinese government for cultural extermination there would be little trouble in their cultural identity being discernible from certain purchasing profiles. Once they are rounded up into camps, the last 15 years of detailed surveillance about them becomes very troublesome for them.
- sizzle 7y ago
  What kind of profiling did you do? How did you account for any biases in your algorithms?

AndrewKemendo 7y ago

Yes that's exactly how this gets implemented in practice. I did quite a bit of client work here too, specifically around using already existing surveillance camera networks to build user profiles. At the end of the day the goal is to optimize for the intersection of "what the user wants" and "what we want to sell." So, a low collection system will give bad recommendations and a really good recommendation system will have an immense amount about the user. Now that I talk with people on the other side of this, it's clear that most don't really care as long as they are getting good suggestions. I had this conversation just a few weeks ago with a young lady and her take was: "It's kind of creepy, but if it gives me good suggestions, I don't really care."

ganoushoreilly 7y ago
I've used systems that leverage passive detection of Bluetooth, Wifi, and other radio signals as an indicator. No Apps required. Tying beacons into points of authentication (login from workspace) or transactional data at a register. A large portion of it was actually focused around security and not product marketing, but the tech is the same.
- brianpayne2 7y ago
  Does the BT detection work the same way that WiFi access point scanning works? I know that app developers use this WiFi tech from a client (device) side to determine location, but I am a bit disturbed about the aspect of this being so accurate with BT devices.
  - ganoushoreilly 7y ago
    Yes passive signal detection behaves like this. Apple uses passive and active Bluetooth in their stores to determine what products you are looking at.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  Tying beacons into points of authentication Reminds me of an old Mac application from PowerPC days that would sense your phone's Bluetooth coming into the room and automatically unlock your computer. I thought it was pretty cool. Current Macs have that possibility built-in, but it only works with the Watch.
  - codezero 7y ago
    There are still some open source solutions for this out there to do it with general Bluetooth.
  - dpkonofa 7y ago
    >Current Macs have that possibility built-in, but it only works with the Watch. Maybe built-in to the OS. You can definitely do this with any Bluetooth device and any Mac with both free and paid software.
  - aaronjmandel 7y ago
    I use MacID app on my iOS device to quickly wake my OSx machine via Bluetooth and authenticate w touchID. I think it's pretty slick. Not for the security crucial installation but fine for home.
MrBuddyCasino 7y ago
> "It's kind of creepy, but if it gives me good suggestions, I don't really care." This is an Unpopular Opinion, but IMHO thats kind of a reasonable stance to take.
- elipsey 7y ago
  You could say the same thing about any externality.
- navigatesol 7y ago
  >This is an Unpopular Opinion, but IMHO thats kind of a reasonable stance to take. I disagree. The recommendation is immediate and apparent to the end-user. The negative potential uses/consequences of all the other data collection are not. It's funny, but when an unsuspecting person gets a home loan they can't possibly afford pushed on them by a shifty mortgage broker, people here cry bloody murder. But when people ignorantly consent to having their data harvested for the pleasure of better targeted advertising, the tech community happily says "but they asked for it!"
  - MegaButts 7y ago
    > But when people ignorantly consent to having their data harvested for the pleasure of better targeted advertising, the tech community happily says "but they asked for it!" What? I feel like the only topic the tech community gets worked up about that nobody else cares about is digital privacy. There are always people on hacker news condemning a lack of privacy and targeted ads - I'd venture it's the majority of people on this site that feel that way.
  - skinnymuch 7y ago
    All Reddit twitter and HN do is complain about data privacy and ads. It’s the complete opposite of ever being “they asked for it”. Can you find any big thread with more than a few small comments Resembling “they asked for it”? I can give you tons of examples for data privacy and anti ad stances. Just go to any FB thread. Or even this thread.
- jethro_tell 7y ago
pariahHN 7y ago
Part of the problem I think is that these people don't actually comprehend what is happening and the possible consequences. To them it's just a magic black box.
- fingerlocks 7y ago
  Maybe I’m one of these people. What exactly are the consequences? So far, the most damaging consequence of overreaching customer privacy is the famous teenage pregnancy leak when Target sent out coupon mailers to expecting moms based on shopping history. That’s a really weirdly specific issue, and hard to imaging a similar scenario that would affect my life in some equally horrible way. Am I missing something? Why should I be so afraid of Home Depot or whatever knowing a little bit about me?
  - dpkonofa 7y ago
    It's not that you should necessarily be afraid of it but rather that you should be more aware of it. Advertising is now weaponized to the point that companies can take advantage of people through psychological tricks to get them to disadvantage themselves just to make a sale. Imagine the housing crisis amped up to an order of magnitude. Transactions, theoretically, should be based on good faith from both parties. If a business has far more insight into you than you have into them, though, then nearly every transaction has the potential to be predatory.
  - LamaOfRuin 7y ago
    As a more serious and well-known concrete threat, this type of data is regularly aggregated by data brokers, and then used by stalkers and domestic abusers to commit crimes. I imagine it being available and cheaply for sale is also a boon for various financial crimes/fraud. It's not home depot specifically to be worried about knowing a little about you, but about them not being competent to control that data and everyone's little bit becoming a lot more significant and dangerous when combined. edit: Also, the same type of information can easily be used later by government. I imagine if Uyghurs were not being specifically targeted by the Chinese government for cultural extermination there would be little trouble in their cultural identity being discernible from certain purchasing profiles. Once they are rounded up into camps, the last 15 years of detailed surveillance about them becomes very troublesome for them.
sizzle 7y ago
What kind of profiling did you do? How did you account for any biases in your algorithms?