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Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

nytimes.com

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Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#111

Post by sk5t »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #76

Maybe the existence of such toolkits is a Chesterton's Fence that says you can't make this work without something installed on the phone. But this would be possible without these trojans. If the Bluetooth beacon configures itself as a master, and enters inquiry mode, phones that pass nearby will happily respond with their Bluetooth ID (see https://www.bluetooth.org/docman/handlers/downloaddoc.ashx?d... , section 8.4)…

Mobile devices (iPhones, probably most others?) randomize their MACs when looking for wireless networks, although that may not be enough to stop a determined snooper.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#112

Post by neuralRiot »

_bxg1 wrote: post #89
TeMPOraL wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good personal workaround, but it's not a solution to a problem - much like moving to a different city doesn't solve the problem of the manufacturing plant poisoning the water supply of the city you live in. Adtech industry needs to be torched. GDPR was a step in the right direction, but unfortunately isn't nearly enough (I'd start with more aggressive enforcement of it, though). Something to pressure your po…

Another personal workaround - which I just realized must exist and apparently does - is a Faraday phone case... https://silent-pocket.com/collections/all-products

Just turn airplane mode on.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#113

Post by neuralRiot »

pixelrevision wrote: post #88
andrewgioia wrote: post #24

This is rage inducing. I went into this article thinking "ok as long as I don't have the Target or Ikea or whatever app installed on my phone, I'm fine." While that is a primary way, this needs to be outlawed: > These companies take their beacon tracking code and bundle it into a toolkit developers can use. The makers of many popular apps, such as those for news or weather updates, insert these toolkits into their ap…

They could have the whole thing be opt in as opposed to opt out. If you want to find the drills at your home depo then opt in via the app otherwise could be ignored. This would at least give people visibility in the same way location services, contacts and push notifications do.

I don't know but my method never fails, look for an orange apron guy> "hey buddy where are the drills?" You'll even be escorted to the right spot.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#114

Post by mixedCase »

_bxg1 wrote: post #89
TeMPOraL wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good personal workaround, but it's not a solution to a problem - much like moving to a different city doesn't solve the problem of the manufacturing plant poisoning the water supply of the city you live in. Adtech industry needs to be torched. GDPR was a step in the right direction, but unfortunately isn't nearly enough (I'd start with more aggressive enforcement of it, though). Something to pressure your po…

Another personal workaround - which I just realized must exist and apparently does - is a Faraday phone case... https://silent-pocket.com/collections/all-products

Well that works if you use your phone as a PDA or a one-way communication device; but that's not the common usecase now is it?

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#115

Post by umvi »

24bug47 wrote: post #96
umvi wrote: post #77

What I don't get is: 1. Pretend it's the 1900s. Walk into a general store, shopkeeper sees you looking at ammo for 20 minutes and then leave without buying anything. Next time you walk in, he recognizes you and says he'll give you a discount on ammo if you buy in bulk. This is totally cool, not a violation of privacy, and both parties benefit. win/win 2. Use a computer to do the same exact thing automatically Rage, p…

You're on HN and "What's the difference" is really your question? 1. Friendly private human interaction shared by two people. 2. Data is collected, sent, analyzed, sold, shared, distributed, stolen, and abused in order to maximize profit across expansive markets at the expense of any respect for the user's privacy. The user is tracked, distracted, and tricked into obeying algorithmic market forces of massive and opaq…

This just seems like such absurd hyperbole I can't tell if you are serious or not. "technology that effectively usurps the user's free will" "electronic prison"

I don't believe any of this. Nobody can usurp my free will no matter how much data they have on me. Heck, even if I told them every last piece of private information I knew about me, I doubt they could increase my spending even 1% more than I currently am with all the coupons and targeted advertising and subliminal marketing in the world.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#116

Post by reaperducer »

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #97
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#117

Post by bduerst »

cortesoft wrote: post #43
dTal wrote: post #28

>Location marketing aims to understand “online-offline attribution.” If a Starbucks coffee ad is sent to your email, for example, marketers want to know if you actually went there and bought a coffee. The only way to know is to monitor your online and offline habits at all times. Make no mistake: the purpose of marketing is to maximize information asymmetry. The natural end point is totalitarian: they know everything…

That is not the purpose of all marketing. That might be the purpose of this kind of tracking, but I don't think telling people the product you created to serve their need is inherently evil. At its best, marketing is a way to let people know the goods and services you have that can make their lives better. This is marketing at its worst. I really enjoy this explanation of why targeted advertising is such a horrible t…

Correct. In capitalism, marketing is the bidirectional flow of information correcting the asymmetry from inefficient markets. This manifests as branding, advertising, affiliate, etc. in the consumer direction and research, surveying, tracking, etc. in the seller direction.

It is the opposite of what GP is saying here, despite their doomsaying at their own revelation that retailers are listening to the broadcasting device consumers bring onto their property to better understand them.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#118

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #92
social_quotient wrote: post #69

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…

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…

> "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.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#119

Post by delecti »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #51
seieste wrote: post #30

The cynical part of me thinks this is the real reason to get rid of the headphone jack -- to make it inconvenient to turn off bluetooth.

On the other hand, I'll tolerate whatever dystopic hellscape before going back to the tangly shitshow of wired earbuds.

Conveniently, thanks to modern technology, you can have a headphone jack and bluetooth support on the same device.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#120

Post by cortesoft »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #72
cortesoft wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not the purpose of all marketing. That might be the purpose of this kind of tracking, but I don't think telling people the product you created to serve their need is inherently evil. At its best, marketing is a way to let people know the goods and services you have that can make their lives better. This is marketing at its worst. I really enjoy this explanation of why targeted advertising is such a horrible t…

> This is marketing at its worst. This is marketing at its real. As practiced. > I don't think telling people the product you created to serve their need is inherently evil. Of course it isn't evil, but this is not what marketing is doing - and claiming so amounts to a motte-and-bailey defense of an industry that's rotten to the core and quite openly malicious towards their fellow human beings.

I am not defending these practices at all, I am just saying the idea of marketing is not inherently evil.

I also think you are being unfair if you say there are zero companies that do marketing right.

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