12 ms·

“ wish there was an app that notified me when a neighbor orders from a restaurant I’ve frequented, near a time of day I’ve ordered.” That’s a privacy nightmare

by vinni2 4y ago

“ wish there was an app that notified me when a neighbor orders from a restaurant I’ve frequented, near a time of day I’ve ordered.” That’s a privacy nightmare.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
babyshake 4y ago
The messaging from the app wouldnt/shouldn't be about what your neighbor did, just that you have a limited time offer for a discount.
mynameisvlad 4y ago
That they take the data gathering and analytics they already do to provide some customer benefit? Let's be clear, this will happen regardless if you get the notification or not. Your purchases are going to be analyzed down to the second you made the purchase.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  Yes, but the metadata that is analyzed is not something that is being pushed to your neighbor's phone. > ... when a neighbor orders from a restaurant ... More to the point, it stays "safe" until (let's be real) there is a data breach. That's less of a privacy nightmare when you consider there's a much smaller range of actors that will use the data from a breach. Contrariwise, the ability to just query their API for some of that data gets turned into an app that someone's stalker ex downloads so they can proceed with stalking. Privacy nightmare indeed.
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    I would say that there is a massive leap to go from "an app will occasionally tell you someone in your general area ordered from X" to "stalkers download this so they can stalk someone". "Neighbors" is a loose term. It doesn't literally mean only the people you live immediately next to. Aside from the fact that the person receiving the notification has no information about the radius this notification was triggered by, there would also not be identifying information in the notification. You're not being told "That person across the hall, John Smith, bought a large pizza from ABC pizza ten minutes ago and is on his way to pick it up now". A stalker would get no actionable information from "Someone in your area ordered sushi from XYZ". There is also no indication that this would be available in any sort of publicly scrapable API, I really don't know where you pulled that from. Push notifications, by definition, are not queried for.
    - gnicholas 4y ago
      Just to be clear, I wasn’t suggesting that anyone outside the company get any information about you or your order. They would just find out that a neighbor (loosely defined) has placed an order from a restaurant you like. That’s it. If a platform created this feature I imagine they would also prime the pump with dishonest notifications about “a neighbor ordered from X restaurant”, with the expectation that they could parlay a single fake order into many real ones.
      - mynameisvlad 4y ago
        I didn't even want to go into pumping notifications, but my mind also went there.

by vinni2 4y ago

“ wish there was an app that notified me when a neighbor orders from a restaurant I’ve frequented, near a time of day I’ve ordered.” That’s a privacy nightmare.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

babyshake 4y ago

The messaging from the app wouldnt/shouldn't be about what your neighbor did, just that you have a limited time offer for a discount.

mynameisvlad 4y ago

That they take the data gathering and analytics they already do to provide some customer benefit? Let's be clear, this will happen regardless if you get the notification or not. Your purchases are going to be analyzed down to the second you made the purchase.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
Yes, but the metadata that is analyzed is not something that is being pushed to your neighbor's phone. > ... when a neighbor orders from a restaurant ... More to the point, it stays "safe" until (let's be real) there is a data breach. That's less of a privacy nightmare when you consider there's a much smaller range of actors that will use the data from a breach. Contrariwise, the ability to just query their API for some of that data gets turned into an app that someone's stalker ex downloads so they can proceed with stalking. Privacy nightmare indeed.
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  I would say that there is a massive leap to go from "an app will occasionally tell you someone in your general area ordered from X" to "stalkers download this so they can stalk someone". "Neighbors" is a loose term. It doesn't literally mean only the people you live immediately next to. Aside from the fact that the person receiving the notification has no information about the radius this notification was triggered by, there would also not be identifying information in the notification. You're not being told "That person across the hall, John Smith, bought a large pizza from ABC pizza ten minutes ago and is on his way to pick it up now". A stalker would get no actionable information from "Someone in your area ordered sushi from XYZ". There is also no indication that this would be available in any sort of publicly scrapable API, I really don't know where you pulled that from. Push notifications, by definition, are not queried for.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    Just to be clear, I wasn’t suggesting that anyone outside the company get any information about you or your order. They would just find out that a neighbor (loosely defined) has placed an order from a restaurant you like. That’s it. If a platform created this feature I imagine they would also prime the pump with dishonest notifications about “a neighbor ordered from X restaurant”, with the expectation that they could parlay a single fake order into many real ones.
    - mynameisvlad 4y ago
      I didn't even want to go into pumping notifications, but my mind also went there.