Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers • Hacker News Board

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#121

Post by sho » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #101

sho wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some random third-party app has to be running on your phone to detect beacons and send the data back They don't have to be running. Here's my understanding (for iOS anyway): 1. Apps have the ability to subscribe to bluetooth callbacks from the OS, which is constantly scanning for them (about once a second, from memory). It will be something like, "wake me up when you detect that beacon with UUID ABCD123 is in range…

Thanks, this helps a lot. I'm pretty shocked all this can go on in the background without permissions. With Apple adopting such a privacy-conscious stance, I really hope this gets their attention so beacon scanning requires explicit permission in the future (and separate from location services -- my weather app needs to know where I am, but certainly doesn't need to scan for beacons). This is honestly pretty egregiou…

> This is honestly pretty egregious.

It certainly is. I knew about the mechanics of it but hadn't realised it was being so widely abused. I would like to see Apple come down on this swift and hard.

Third party paid SDKs! Those cunning bastards. AdTech really is the dregs.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#122

Post by russh » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

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…

But didn't Apple change IOS so that the button to turn off bluetooth does not actually turn off bluetooth's ability to work with beacons?

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#123

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #120

TeMPOraL wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I won't go so far as to say there are zero companies doing ethical marketing, but I am convinced there are very few of them - simply because ethical marketing is at severe competitive disadvantage to unethical one.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#124

Post by hlkps » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

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…

How does this work if you don't give bluetooth access to the apps which include those toolkits?

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#125

Post by manyxcxi » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

Having done some proof of concept work for a couple of very large retailers using BLE/beacons I believe most of the scumminess isn’t on the retailer side but the 3rd party API/framework.

The requests we were fielding was for better ability to find things in the store, floor maps for every store with wayfinding, and the ability to use the app to get more contextual info on demand.

For those not completely in the know on beacons: they are broadcast only and it is the apps running in the background on your phone that shuffle off the data on your phone. If you were running a device free of the offending apps, your privacy is fine on that front. The WiFi tracking is a different story though.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#126

Post by givinguflac » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 7:41 PM UTC

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…

iOS 13 actually has BT permissions per-app, and blocking that has no bearing on bt audio as that’s handled on the system level. It’s quite eye opening. Netflix for example wants access to BT even though there is absolutely no Netflix accessory that would warrant such access. I’m pretty thrilled about the change and it only cements my choice of iOS for me.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#127

Post by givinguflac » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

russh wrote: post #122

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…

But didn't Apple change IOS so that the button to turn off bluetooth does not actually turn off bluetooth's ability to work with beacons?

No, turning that off blocks beacons and disallows new connections via bt. It still allows existing active connections which may be where it’s confusing.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#128

Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

neuralRiot wrote: post #113

pixelrevision wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Reminds me of attending a concert around 2009. We were chilling to the pre-set tracks, my date started fiddling with Shazam on her iPhone. I walked back to the sound booth and asked.

My method delivered.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#129

Post by g8oz » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

We need to articulate the changes we need from Apple & Google. Something along the lines of a) permission required for any app to use Bluetooth or BLE - preferably differentiating between whether the app is running in the foreground or background b) a way to turn off both Bluetooth and BLE at the OS level. Then pressure needs to applied either through public opinion or through legislative efforts.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#130

Post by jonahhorowitz » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

dawnerd wrote: post #109

keanebean86 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have security cameras too. Correlate video with AP locations and you can probably figure out whos phone it. Tie that in with some facial recognition database and can really identify people. Walmart has been adding cameras on high shrink isles that are almost eye level. At some point they might add even more cameras for "security" that are also used for eye tracking. Think of all the opportunities to optimize pro…

self checkouts already have eye level cameras and they know which items you actually purchase so really not that farfetched to assume they're also using beacons to track your phone as well.

And when you swipe your card to check out they have your name, even if you don't use a loyalty card. Name + Face, along with some bluetooth tracking data. They can now track you forever, even if you delete the app, stop using your credit cards, etc.