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MoviePass CEO says the app tracks your location before and after movies

techcrunch.com

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Re: MoviePass CEO says the app tracks your location before and after movies

#11

Post by stickydink »

cryptoz wrote: post #10
sp332 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An Android, it also asks for permission to read all your photos and you can't use the app if you don't accept. I only run the app on an old iPhone I had lying around for that reason.

Is there a use case in the app that makes that somewhat reasonable? If not, it sounds like grounds to be reported and removed from Google Play as malware. I thought that would be 100% against the developer rules. Maybe it is just a guideline to only ask permission for things you need, and to let the user use the app even if permission isn't granted. Maybe it's just that Google won't feature you or something. But it s…

From experience, Google does flag up permission usage as part of featuring. Insofar as listing all the ones that are used and requesting an explanation of why each is needed.

Re: MoviePass CEO says the app tracks your location before and after movies

#13

Post by sp332 »

cryptoz wrote: post #10
sp332 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An Android, it also asks for permission to read all your photos and you can't use the app if you don't accept. I only run the app on an old iPhone I had lying around for that reason.

Is there a use case in the app that makes that somewhat reasonable? If not, it sounds like grounds to be reported and removed from Google Play as malware. I thought that would be 100% against the developer rules. Maybe it is just a guideline to only ask permission for things you need, and to let the user use the app even if permission isn't granted. Maybe it's just that Google won't feature you or something. But it s…

Not that I know of. It's never even asked for that kind of thing on the iPhone version so it's pretty confusing.

Edit: according to old posts on a support forum, it might ask for a photo of your ticket stub. That doesn't explain why it wants access to your own photos, which is a different permission on Android from getting access to your camera.

Re: MoviePass CEO says the app tracks your location before and after movies

#14

Post by paulcole »

cryptoz wrote: post #10
sp332 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An Android, it also asks for permission to read all your photos and you can't use the app if you don't accept. I only run the app on an old iPhone I had lying around for that reason.

Is there a use case in the app that makes that somewhat reasonable? If not, it sounds like grounds to be reported and removed from Google Play as malware. I thought that would be 100% against the developer rules. Maybe it is just a guideline to only ask permission for things you need, and to let the user use the app even if permission isn't granted. Maybe it's just that Google won't feature you or something. But it s…

> Is there a use case in the app that makes that somewhat reasonable.

Maybe image recognition to see the kinds of things you're eating/considering buying before/after going to the movies?

This seems pretty reasonable to me. I consider it a fair trade for the monetary discount they're offering on their services.

I don't want to spend $10-$15 whenever I want to go to the movies. But I'm more than happy to provide access to my data and photos which I have no way to easily convert to monetary value.

If I didn't feel this way, I just wouldn't use their service.

Re: MoviePass CEO says the app tracks your location before and after movies

#17

Post by vlovich123 »

joncrane wrote: post #12

Someone in an earlier thread about Moviepass posited that they are banking on making money on data, because they are losing money on the ticket portion. The surprising thing is that the CEO admitted it so readily.

Why is that surprising. They were always up front about the data when they got acquired & dropped it to its current price. The new part is the location tracking (which thankfully you're now in charge of on an iPhone).

Re: MoviePass CEO says the app tracks your location before and after movies

#18

Post by ibdf »

lghh wrote: post #15

I'm really over trying to fight companies on this on an app-by-app basis. If we want this to stop, it has to be through legislation. Either we allow companies to do it and stop acting shocked when it happens, or we legislate the possibility away.

I don't know why everyone is always so shocked. People want smart devices/services that understand them. Where do you think the data comes from? From you!

Re: MoviePass CEO says the app tracks your location before and after movies

#19

Post by hartator »

I don't see the big deal really, Google maps and the like has probably 100x the data plus the mean to make it evil. I don't really see what extra data they will have compare to just ticket sales. It seems just a bad VC bet, and you can take advantage of it.

Re: MoviePass CEO says the app tracks your location before and after movies

#20

Post by OJFord »

product50 wrote: post #5
mon22 wrote: post #3

Without setting location access to "always", this shouldn't be possible, right? He might only be talking about the customers who have it enabled. So yeah, will wait for the clarification.

On Android, that is not a setting you get.

You can disable location access completely, or while in background, or prompt every time.
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