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The author has this backwards: > but the new trend is surveillance pricing. A company will know that you just got paid and so charge you just a bit more for yo

The author has this backwards: > but the new trend is surveillance pricing. A company will know that you just got paid and so charge you just a bit more for your chicken nuggets than they do when you haven’t been paid in two weeks. First of all, no, a company has no idea when you get paid. The reality of lots of apps (like McDonald's) is discount pricing. You pay full price at the store if you're a rich person who can't be bothered with apps. Downloading an app and creating an account is the modern equivalent of cutting out coupons or buy-10-get-one-free cards -- price-conscious consumers will go to the trouble and get cheaper prices. They're just loyalty programs. Price discrimination like this is nothing new, and it lets rich people subsidize the lower costs for people with less money. These apps run in sandboxes. There's not much to surveil. Obviously don't grant them permissions to see your contacts or track your location all the time. Will the app be able to tie all your purchases to a single identity? Of course. But the stores already do that anyways if you use the same credit card for each purchase. I don't mind downloading apps for the 5-10 stores/restaurants I go to most. Beyond that, I obviously won't because it's too much of a hassle. But the loyalty discounts I get save me real money. I have no problem with that.

muppetman 11mo ago
McDonalds has been shown multiple times to use their app to figure out how much someone is really willing to play for their slop: https://www.stuff.co.nz/money/350476761/mcdonald-s-under-fire-amid-accusations-of-price-gouging-meals-on-app https://www.stuff.co.nz/money/350476761/mcdonald-s-under-fir... To you and me, the consumer, the value of an app is "the same" as the old loyalty cards. But the value to the company is huge! How often you open the app (how often are you thinking about their food), how often you accept an offer, what the price of the offer is, what card you used to pay, where were you when you opened the app etc etc. Going to be fun times when in 10 years time they sell all that information to your health insurance provider for them to go "Holy hell" and jack your insurances prices up 5 times over. But sure, we got 20c off a burger.
- crazygringo 11mo ago
  You don't need to use words like "slop", it's pejorative and has nothing to do with the issue at hand. And the link you use is just different people getting different discount coupons in the app. Companies also mail different coupons to different people based on their purchase history. I can't really find myself getting worked up about different people getting different promotions. And it's illegal for health insurance to offer customized pricing like that. And the credit card companies already know I eat at McDonald's or wherever else. Using the app isn't adding any new data. And it's not $0.20 off. It's usually more like $5 off a $15 meal that brings it down to $10. And those numbers add up over the course of a year -- across a few apps, it adds up to hundreds of dollars of savings a year.
grugagag 11mo ago
Its more than coupons. These apps track your location, usage and so on then sell this data to a 3rd party. Coupons don’t do that. Do you read full useragreement you accept when installing apps? Most people wouldn’t understand the legalese in those. A coupon could still be an image you find online that can be scanned and that’s it. Apps are totally not necessary unless they squeeze something out of the user.
- raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
  An app can’t track your location if you don’t give it permission.
  - venturecruelty 11mo ago
    That is not true. https://www.wired.com/story/gravy-location-data-app-leak-rtb/ https://www.wired.com/story/gravy-location-data-app-leak-rtb...
    - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
      With absolutely no details - how are these apps surreptitiously getting location data from your GPS without you giving them permission? If they are using your IP address to track you, a website can do that just as easily.
      - venturecruelty 11mo ago
        Here you go: https://www.kroll.com/en/publications/cyber/cti-gravy-analytics https://www.kroll.com/en/publications/cyber/cti-gravy-analyt... I'm not going to Google any further.
        raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
        The argument was that apps can surreptitiously gather information from you. The apps in question didn’t get your location data without you specifically allowing it. Websites can also ask you for your location. In the comment you replied to I asked > from your GPS without you giving them permission?
rolandog 11mo ago
That's a beautiful strawman argument; let me have a tussle with it to see if it holds on its own. First, let's not miss the forest for the trees. We're engaging in a common "hacker" watering hole. Our opsec skills are very likely not representative of what your average person has, and the point of the article is to educate the average person. Second, most of those apps require you give your pound of data upfront, or they won't work correctly until you grant permissions. Next, it's not the same if the establishment I'm buying chicken nuggets from ties down my credit card to my identity or if it does the same plus a ton of extra data that I've been forced to grant. Also, one of the main concerns from the article is surveillance pricing... So yeah, you sure "saved" a bunch ($100) over the course of 1 year at a restaurant, but overall you're worse off because some data broker managed to have all airlines raise your flight prices by $500 because they learned that you're going to have to attend your best mate's wedding. And last, but not least, the article mentioned the binding arbitration clause that one blindly signs away when accepting the app's ToS: > Walking into a restaurant to buy a cheeseburger, there’s no way a company can force you to enter a contractual agreement that includes binding arbitration. Downloading an app, however, requires agreeing to a “Terms of Service,” and those can absolutely include a binding arbitration clause, and that clause can be applied even to cases outside the app. This happened to Jeffrey Piccolo when his wife died of food poisoning in a Disney World. Disney made a motion to dismiss because a couple years back, Jeffrey had signed up for a free trial of Disney+, which included a binding arbitration clause, which meant that if Jeffrey wanted to complain about how Disney murdered his wife, they’d have to settle it out of court with a mediator that Disney hired. No jury, no judge, no oversight. [...] I have no words to describe how depraved that is.
- raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
  > Second, most of those apps require you give your pound of data upfront, or they won't work correctly until you grant permissions. I can’t think of a single iOS app I’ve installed in over 15 years that forced me to give it unnecessary permissions for it to work
  - rolandog 11mo ago
    Well, consider me impressed; perhaps I should consider switching away from Android... the only thing keeping me from doing so is Apple's walled garden... the hefty price tags don't help, too. For my part, I can tell you that Samsung's "Galaxy Buds Pro" app (IIRC) for a while there didn't allow me to customize some settings if I didn't grant calendar or contact permissions... I tested today and that didn't happen (it was probably a bug... though I remember it being present for a LOT of time; enough that I stopped trying to open the app). My workaround consisted in using the widget to toggle noise-cancellation modes.
marcus_holmes 11mo ago
Individually, yes, each app cannot obtain much data. But all the apps sell their bit of data to a third party, and buy the resulting profile about you, because they can identify you. So no, the McDonalds app doesn't know when you got paid directly. But it does know that you bought a cheeseburger in the last two weeks of every month, and it knows that your grocery expenses are higher in the first two weeks of every month, and you tend to eat at a restaurant in the first week of every month, and you take less ubers in the last week of every month; it's not hard to conclude that you get paid at the start of the month. And that's without your banking app selling your info, which it might do. In which case it knows exactly when you get paid, and your probable current bank balance right now when you place your cheeseburger order.

muppetman 11mo ago

McDonalds has been shown multiple times to use their app to figure out how much someone is really willing to play for their slop: https://www.stuff.co.nz/money/350476761/mcdonald-s-under-fire-amid-accusations-of-price-gouging-meals-on-app https://www.stuff.co.nz/money/350476761/mcdonald-s-under-fir... To you and me, the consumer, the value of an app is "the same" as the old loyalty cards. But the value to the company is huge! How often you open the app (how often are you thinking about their food), how often you accept an offer, what the price of the offer is, what card you used to pay, where were you when you opened the app etc etc. Going to be fun times when in 10 years time they sell all that information to your health insurance provider for them to go "Holy hell" and jack your insurances prices up 5 times over. But sure, we got 20c off a burger.

crazygringo 11mo ago
You don't need to use words like "slop", it's pejorative and has nothing to do with the issue at hand. And the link you use is just different people getting different discount coupons in the app. Companies also mail different coupons to different people based on their purchase history. I can't really find myself getting worked up about different people getting different promotions. And it's illegal for health insurance to offer customized pricing like that. And the credit card companies already know I eat at McDonald's or wherever else. Using the app isn't adding any new data. And it's not $0.20 off. It's usually more like $5 off a $15 meal that brings it down to $10. And those numbers add up over the course of a year -- across a few apps, it adds up to hundreds of dollars of savings a year.

grugagag 11mo ago

Its more than coupons. These apps track your location, usage and so on then sell this data to a 3rd party. Coupons don’t do that. Do you read full useragreement you accept when installing apps? Most people wouldn’t understand the legalese in those. A coupon could still be an image you find online that can be scanned and that’s it. Apps are totally not necessary unless they squeeze something out of the user.

raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
An app can’t track your location if you don’t give it permission.
- venturecruelty 11mo ago
  That is not true. https://www.wired.com/story/gravy-location-data-app-leak-rtb/ https://www.wired.com/story/gravy-location-data-app-leak-rtb...
  - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
    With absolutely no details - how are these apps surreptitiously getting location data from your GPS without you giving them permission? If they are using your IP address to track you, a website can do that just as easily.
    - venturecruelty 11mo ago
      Here you go: https://www.kroll.com/en/publications/cyber/cti-gravy-analytics https://www.kroll.com/en/publications/cyber/cti-gravy-analyt... I'm not going to Google any further.
      - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
        The argument was that apps can surreptitiously gather information from you. The apps in question didn’t get your location data without you specifically allowing it. Websites can also ask you for your location. In the comment you replied to I asked > from your GPS without you giving them permission?

rolandog 11mo ago

That's a beautiful strawman argument; let me have a tussle with it to see if it holds on its own. First, let's not miss the forest for the trees. We're engaging in a common "hacker" watering hole. Our opsec skills are very likely not representative of what your average person has, and the point of the article is to educate the average person. Second, most of those apps require you give your pound of data upfront, or they won't work correctly until you grant permissions. Next, it's not the same if the establishment I'm buying chicken nuggets from ties down my credit card to my identity or if it does the same plus a ton of extra data that I've been forced to grant. Also, one of the main concerns from the article is surveillance pricing... So yeah, you sure "saved" a bunch ($100) over the course of 1 year at a restaurant, but overall you're worse off because some data broker managed to have all airlines raise your flight prices by $500 because they learned that you're going to have to attend your best mate's wedding. And last, but not least, the article mentioned the binding arbitration clause that one blindly signs away when accepting the app's ToS: > Walking into a restaurant to buy a cheeseburger, there’s no way a company can force you to enter a contractual agreement that includes binding arbitration. Downloading an app, however, requires agreeing to a “Terms of Service,” and those can absolutely include a binding arbitration clause, and that clause can be applied even to cases outside the app. This happened to Jeffrey Piccolo when his wife died of food poisoning in a Disney World. Disney made a motion to dismiss because a couple years back, Jeffrey had signed up for a free trial of Disney+, which included a binding arbitration clause, which meant that if Jeffrey wanted to complain about how Disney murdered his wife, they’d have to settle it out of court with a mediator that Disney hired. No jury, no judge, no oversight. [...] I have no words to describe how depraved that is.

raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
> Second, most of those apps require you give your pound of data upfront, or they won't work correctly until you grant permissions. I can’t think of a single iOS app I’ve installed in over 15 years that forced me to give it unnecessary permissions for it to work
- rolandog 11mo ago
  Well, consider me impressed; perhaps I should consider switching away from Android... the only thing keeping me from doing so is Apple's walled garden... the hefty price tags don't help, too. For my part, I can tell you that Samsung's "Galaxy Buds Pro" app (IIRC) for a while there didn't allow me to customize some settings if I didn't grant calendar or contact permissions... I tested today and that didn't happen (it was probably a bug... though I remember it being present for a LOT of time; enough that I stopped trying to open the app). My workaround consisted in using the widget to toggle noise-cancellation modes.

marcus_holmes 11mo ago

Individually, yes, each app cannot obtain much data. But all the apps sell their bit of data to a third party, and buy the resulting profile about you, because they can identify you. So no, the McDonalds app doesn't know when you got paid directly. But it does know that you bought a cheeseburger in the last two weeks of every month, and it knows that your grocery expenses are higher in the first two weeks of every month, and you tend to eat at a restaurant in the first week of every month, and you take less ubers in the last week of every month; it's not hard to conclude that you get paid at the start of the month. And that's without your banking app selling your info, which it might do. In which case it knows exactly when you get paid, and your probable current bank balance right now when you place your cheeseburger order.