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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

#151

Post by pariahHN »

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…

Part of the problem I think is that these people don't actually comprehend what is happening and the possible consequences. To them it's just a magic black box.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#153

Post by graenxa »

dmje wrote: post #141

The really simple answer? Give up your smartphone. It's eating your life anyway, crossing boundaries with your family / work. You're addicted to checking: your downtime is zero, your free space to think: negligible. Mindfulness: none. Mindlessness: maximum. Just a thought.

I am tempted by this more and more.

I'd be curious to hear from anyone who's tried it

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#154

Post by TeMPOraL »

aviraldg wrote: post #136
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…

What about all the people around the world who can't afford to pay for the services that adtech currently pays for for them? Why do you feel you can make the decision to get rid of adtech on their behalf?

I'm not making the decision for anyone - I'm not the Supreme Commander of the Solar System (yet). I am merely advocating for destruction of adtech, as much as I can.

As for people using services subsidized by adtech - there's no rule of the universe that says you can either pay everything in cash, or have it free with ads. Those are only two particular business models out of space of many. Getting rid of adtech will only make ad-powered service providers switch to the next best model, hopefully a more ethical one.

The question you're posing is equivalent to "what about all the people who couldn't afford X if providing X wouldn't involve toxic chemicals poisoning their water supply?". Societies around the world consider many business models unacceptable; I'm only pleading that advertising as practiced be added to the list of such unacceptable business models.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#155

Post by OrwellianChild »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #7

Android has a feature called "nearby device scanning" so even if you turn off bluetooth, apps can still do BLE. I suspect stuff like this, where many many apps can spy on you on behalf of others, is why Google made BT access a Location category. But it means your weather app that uses location to tell you where you are? It is selling your location via BT beacons to 3rd parties.

For those who are interested, this feature can be deactivated. The location in settings has moved around a bit, but you can just search for "nearby device scanning" and shut it off for both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#156

Post by MegaButts »

navigatesol wrote: post #146
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

> This is an Unpopular Opinion, but IMHO thats kind of a reasonable stance to take. I disagree. The recommendation is immediate and apparent to the end-user. The negative potential uses/consequences of all the other data collection are not. It's funny, but when an unsuspecting person gets a home loan they can't possibly afford pushed on them by a shifty mortgage broker, people here cry bloody murder. But when people…

> But when people ignorantly consent to having their data harvested for the pleasure of better targeted advertising, the tech community happily says "but they asked for it!"

What? I feel like the only topic the tech community gets worked up about that nobody else cares about is digital privacy. There are always people on hacker news condemning a lack of privacy and targeted ads - I'd venture it's the majority of people on this site that feel that way.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#157

Post by jethro_tell »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #118
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…

> "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.

That's not unpopular. That's the idea of a two sided transaction, you learn a little about me and point me in the right direction as a personal shopper and I'll buy something from you.

Also, point out that you're going to sell that data to anyone who asks, link it to your facebook profile and CC data and people start to get a little uneasy. The reason people tend to view these things as OK, is that they see it as a 2 sided transaction and don't realize the implications of unregulated data. If we had clear laws around data, and consent of use of data like GDPR in the EU, it's a completely reasonable stance to take. (even with GDPR, there's a lot of data in things like tracking beacons and video recognition in public that are difficult to consent too or have data removed . . ..)

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#158

Post by move-on-by »

tacLog wrote: post #145
move-on-by wrote: post #110

This is a bit off topic, but how could I do this at home? Seems like it could be a great addition to home security systems. Criminals know to cover their faces with all the cameras and they use stolen vehicles that can’t be traced back to them. I bet they still have their phones with them. I’m not sure the police would take action on a device’s MAC address- but it’s still another data point. Perhaps there are hardwar…

I do wifi tracking for a living and no there is no off the shelve solution for consumers that I have ever seen. You can accomplish this with a raspberry pi, a wifi adapter that supports monitor mode, and tcpdump set to the right filters. However, I don't see why anyone ever would. As others have mentioned many of the top wifi brands, Cisco, Aruba, and Meraki (now owned by Cisco) provide this kind of information to cl…

Built-in RaspberryPi WiFi can do monitor mode. Kali Linux even has a raspberry pi image. RaspberryPi also has built in Bluetooth that supports 4.1 and low energy. Since Bluetooth is a less powerful signal, is there anything I could do with that?

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#159

Post by dTal »

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…

I think positioning any kind of advertising as "helpfully informing" consumers is wrong. The ad wants me to buy the product. That's its purpose. No matter if it's bad for me. No matter if it's useless, or overpriced, or a competitor makes a better one. If a product I happen to buy because of an ad is actually the best use of my money, that's nothing more than a happy coincidence. No ad ever gave a list of reasons why you shouldn't buy a product.

When someone clearly lists the merits of a product without conflict of interest, then that does indeed lets people known what goods and services make their lives better. We have a different word for that - a "review". The purpose of an ad, by definition, is not to inform - the purpose is to persuade. They are opposites.

Re: Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers

#160

Post by 24gttghh »

bduerst wrote: post #148
tantalor wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I turn wifi and Bluetooth off You believe that makes a difference?

It doesn't for Apple users. Location and other bluetooth features are still on after you turn it "off". https://www.zdnet.com/article/ios-11s-control-center-may-say...

That's the control center shit. I made a shortcut widget that actually shuts it off for this scenario.
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