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That they have nationwide systems does not surprise me. But that it's a global system does surprise me. Their main market should be the US, but EU data protect

That they have nationwide systems does not surprise me. But that it's a global system does surprise me. Their main market should be the US, but EU data protection is legally mostly incompatible. I am pretty sure they have major violations. For FAANGs that's not news and they have their cases with the commission regularly. But for pretty old brick and mortar restaurant business I am suprised. Edit: Of course the central recipes are globally standard. But otherwise I'd expect the logistics more regional. Especially for Australia mentioned in the article.

filleokus 3y ago
I think one of the value propositions / moats / benefit of scale (nowadays) for a mega corp like McDonald's is that the cost of e.g the kiosk software is spread over so tremendously many restaurants. Even if they do follow local regulations and have mostly "isolated deployments" of things touching customer data, they might still have things like a centralised DNS server or update server for kiosk/POS software etc. I would be pretty surprised if anno 2024 an organisation like McDonald's had regional independent SWE/Ops teams building essentially the same thing but for their region.
- usr1106 3y ago
  Megacorp and megacorp. Here they are small franchises, not owned by McDonald's. Of course using basically the same kiosk software makes sense despite being different localisations and different business owners. Having single points of failure globally not so much. I wonder how business owners take functioning sea cables for granted. We have wars in several places on the planet.
  - greedo 3y ago
    A significant number of McDonalds locations in the US are owned by the McDonalds corporation, not franchisees. And McDonalds wields a heavy hand in "encouraging" franchisees to participate in whatever program they're currently running or implementing. This goes from food introductions, to hardware, to back of the office programs.
    - usr1106 3y ago
      Of course that's a core of franchising: Limiting the choice of business owners. They have to source your stuff even if choices more suitable for them might exist.
trollied 3y ago
Why is data protection an issue & what would be a violation? If I walk into one of their establishments & order a burger, the store has zero idea who I am. I just pay, get an order ID & stand there and wait. I don't have to login. There's no PII.
- bigmattystyles 3y ago
  Did you pay cash?
  - trollied 3y ago
    What's that got to do with anything? Card details aren't stored.
    - reportgunner 3y ago
      Is there no trace of you sending money from your card to McDonalds ? How do they audit for fraud ?
      - Stranger43 3y ago
        It's stored by your bank but your credit card or account id is never transferred to the retailer by the payment processors instead what happens is that McDonalds get an unique transaction ID that only your card provider knows was generated by your card.
        reportgunner 3y ago
        So how do they know it was me who sent the money and not some McDonalds money launderer ?
        Stranger43 3y ago
        McDonald's don't your bank does know you authorized an transaction using pin/card/app. The payment terminal is essentially not actually talking directly to the POS except to tell it that transaction id "xyz"(which only your bank/"card issuer" know is you) was approved, everything else is encrypted between terminal and payment processor and not supposed to be visible to the retailer.
karmakaze 3y ago
This reminds me of the danger of centralizing without safeguards. Like the time Google was able to fat-finger a network change globally. Similar to writing testable code, config changes should be able to be rolled out incrementally, especially if it's not easily revertable. Otherwise don't over-centralize--you have to be this tall to ride this ride.

filleokus 3y ago

I think one of the value propositions / moats / benefit of scale (nowadays) for a mega corp like McDonald's is that the cost of e.g the kiosk software is spread over so tremendously many restaurants. Even if they do follow local regulations and have mostly "isolated deployments" of things touching customer data, they might still have things like a centralised DNS server or update server for kiosk/POS software etc. I would be pretty surprised if anno 2024 an organisation like McDonald's had regional independent SWE/Ops teams building essentially the same thing but for their region.

usr1106 3y ago
Megacorp and megacorp. Here they are small franchises, not owned by McDonald's. Of course using basically the same kiosk software makes sense despite being different localisations and different business owners. Having single points of failure globally not so much. I wonder how business owners take functioning sea cables for granted. We have wars in several places on the planet.
- greedo 3y ago
  A significant number of McDonalds locations in the US are owned by the McDonalds corporation, not franchisees. And McDonalds wields a heavy hand in "encouraging" franchisees to participate in whatever program they're currently running or implementing. This goes from food introductions, to hardware, to back of the office programs.
  - usr1106 3y ago
    Of course that's a core of franchising: Limiting the choice of business owners. They have to source your stuff even if choices more suitable for them might exist.

trollied 3y ago

Why is data protection an issue & what would be a violation? If I walk into one of their establishments & order a burger, the store has zero idea who I am. I just pay, get an order ID & stand there and wait. I don't have to login. There's no PII.

bigmattystyles 3y ago
Did you pay cash?
- trollied 3y ago
  What's that got to do with anything? Card details aren't stored.
  - reportgunner 3y ago
    Is there no trace of you sending money from your card to McDonalds ? How do they audit for fraud ?
    - Stranger43 3y ago
      It's stored by your bank but your credit card or account id is never transferred to the retailer by the payment processors instead what happens is that McDonalds get an unique transaction ID that only your card provider knows was generated by your card.
      - reportgunner 3y ago
        So how do they know it was me who sent the money and not some McDonalds money launderer ?
        Stranger43 3y ago
        McDonald's don't your bank does know you authorized an transaction using pin/card/app. The payment terminal is essentially not actually talking directly to the POS except to tell it that transaction id "xyz"(which only your bank/"card issuer" know is you) was approved, everything else is encrypted between terminal and payment processor and not supposed to be visible to the retailer.

karmakaze 3y ago

This reminds me of the danger of centralizing without safeguards. Like the time Google was able to fat-finger a network change globally. Similar to writing testable code, config changes should be able to be rolled out incrementally, especially if it's not easily revertable. Otherwise don't over-centralize--you have to be this tall to ride this ride.