Can’t you just uninstall the app after 1 use. How would they continue to track you later?
Uninstalling after they’ve collected your data is hardly a solution.
There may be a steep privacy cost if you park here
241–250 of 263 posts
Re: There may be a steep privacy cost if you park here
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you want to protest the parking scheme and you complain to Trader Joe’s you won’t get anywhere TJ does care that it's customers want to come to the store, and they do have some power during lease negotiations. Making it bad PR for Trader Joes really is a good way to exerting pressure to get the landlord's rule changed. For this specific parking garage, the TJ is the most major tenant, so they would have the most…
Since they’re already in the space, they’ve already agreed to a lease. Maybe in 10 years when their lease is up for renewal, they can try to negotiate that, but it’s very unlikely they can do anything about it now. The appropriate place to complain would be the landlord. TJ’s didn’t choose the parking vendor and likely has no say.
Of course they can do something about it. Just because they agreed to a lease doesn't mean the landlord can change the conditions however they like. From TJs response it does not sound like TJ agreed to the app requirement in their lease. Suddenly requiring customers to install an app is a pretty material change.
TJ could ask the landlord friendly to not require the app, they could sue them, or maybe they could even withhold some payments until the owner of the building complies with their agreement again.
And I really doubt that the landlord wants to risk pissing off a major tenant over a parking app. I don't know what the market is currently like in LA, but in my part of the world lots of commercial spaces are free and landlords seem to be struggling to find tenants after businesses closed during the pandemic.
Re: There may be a steep privacy cost if you park here
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
And when the webpage is no longer updated? Heck, we've even seen that model simply to use goods you've purchased , as with digital restrictions malignant books, music, videos, and games, where the restrictions-management servers were discontinued and access to the goods (bads) bought requiring them became useless.
The device itself is serving up the webpage. It doesn't get updated. It's connected to the network and you visit the ip address or whatever
Ah, got it.
Though there is still the prospect of broken or insecure applications. Depending on the specific use case, that might or might not be an issue.
Though there's the casino whose network was hacked through a fish tank:
http://www.businessinsider.com/hackers-stole-a-casinos-datab...
Re: There may be a steep privacy cost if you park here
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since they’re already in the space, they’ve already agreed to a lease. Maybe in 10 years when their lease is up for renewal, they can try to negotiate that, but it’s very unlikely they can do anything about it now. The appropriate place to complain would be the landlord. TJ’s didn’t choose the parking vendor and likely has no say.
Of course they can do something about it. Just because they agreed to a lease doesn't mean the landlord can change the conditions however they like. From TJs response it does not sound like TJ agreed to the app requirement in their lease. Suddenly requiring customers to install an app is a pretty material change. TJ could ask the landlord friendly to not require the app, they could sue them, or maybe they could even…
Sure, TJ's can complain, or the article could name the landlord directly, who actually has the contract with the parking vendor. Leases generally don't give you any control over parts of the building that are not leased to you. Why would they? TJ's might be pissed off, but there's not much they can do without expensively breaking a lease and relocating an entire store to some other place, which they probably aren't going to do over a parking app. Withholding rent is going to get them sued and evicted unless the lease specifically states that they get to choose who the parking vendor is, which it almost certainly doesn't.
Re: There may be a steep privacy cost if you park here
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
> is now fully integrated with ID.me Getting a license or vehicle registration information is sold in certain states. [0]: https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/02/20/texas-dmv-selling-driver...
In California there's just a simple form and a fee to retrieve information from the DMV. If anyone does this to lookup your information, you will be notified by the state. I highly recommend getting a PO Box or a PMB and using that as your primary address on your drivers license, for this exact reason. In this case, you are required to also give the address you physically live at, but this information is not eligible…
I don't know if this is still the case, but in California the DMV form has a box asking for "Apartment or box number". I had a PMB (private mail box, like a PO Box but at a third-party business) so used my PMB number & street address.
DMV mailed me a licence with street name and "Apartment " even though it wasn't an apartment and I lived elsewhere. That address worked perfectly for years - banks, passport application, etc, everyone accepted it. Online ordering from sites that specifically said "we don't ship to PO Boxes" also worked no problem.
If I ever move back to California I'll definitely do that again. I was 100% truthful on the DMV license application, it's just that they chose to interpret my mailing address as a residential apartment.
Re: There may be a steep privacy cost if you park here
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re right. They were. My mistake. Personally I don’t like those either. I’ve experienced it with printers (which can only be configured initially via USB and some app), 3D printers (configured by putting an SD card in your computer), and other gizmos. They’re all a pain to deal with, especially if your WiFi details change or their IP does. Some others expect you to connect to THEIR Wi-Fi network instead. Which is…
At the time I was considering it, I figured there should be a dedicated protocol for serving things like this. Something simple, like a subset of bluetooth, with easy discoverability. Sort of like NFC perhaps. Something that you can implement with minimal software and hardware support. Obviously you risk the protocol dying and devices becoming bricks. I'm not sure how you avoid that.
> Something simple, like a subset of bluetooth, with easy discoverability
Re: There may be a steep privacy cost if you park here
#247One of my local shopping complexes had their landlord add tolls to the previously free parking. It was all done via an incredibly shitty app that required you to set up an account and link a credit card to pay. It was slow, hard to use, and crashed a couple of times on me while I was trying to set up the account forcing me to start from scratch. They also had kiosks, but they were not working. I used to go to that sh…
Here in the 3rd world you pay for parking at almost all the malls you go to. But since Covid kicked in they've either had to change everything to be contactless, or to just open the booms (which is what the majority have done).
Re: There may be a steep privacy cost if you park here
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
100% agree, I've been saying this for years. I've joked with friends that I'd call it Dumb Inc. It's (mostly) in jest, but I think there's a real mismatch of expectations with a lot of modern appliances with respect to what a consumer needs and what companies use to try and differentiate their products from the competition. In evolutionary biology, there's this idea that "evolution is stingy" – in most cases, a speci…
> 100% agree, I've been saying this for years. I've joked with friends that I'd call it Dumb Inc. The problem is that — in a not so distant future, where every company makes a large slice of its profit from selling user data — Dumb Inc. products will be a lot more expensive than the competition. As people in general are not technically competent to assess the consequences of their digital actions, they will chose the…
> future, where every company makes a large slice of its profit from selling user data
Which is why we have the GDPR to prevent this dystopian shite!
The only people on HN who object to the GDPR are those whos scummy business model exploits user data (and those who don't realise GDPR popups only need to exist because advertisers must now ask permission to use your personal data; and so they should!).
Re: There may be a steep privacy cost if you park here
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, I guess I don't understand why people who don't park should pay for parking? Sure, charging an entry fee might make sense if people were hanging out in say a cafe, without buying anything, it was really full and the rent was really high. I've heard that such places exist. Over here, paying for parking has gotten really easy in the last five years, I think two apps, both work great: Easypark for streets and parki…
If people don't park, and this is more than a minority use case, there probably shouldn't even be parking, because it's probably a massive waste of space. None of what you've written sounds convenient, it sounds like a massive pain in the arse. If I do have to pay, I'd rather just stick some cash in a machine on the way out, paying for the time I used then and there and making it impossible to be fined or get stuck m…
Sure, you can of course also pay with cash, it's just more of a hassle for me, that's why I choose the automatic system.
In a mall I go to, the first parking hour is free. This means it's less work for also people without the app.
The first hour free also means the pedestrian shoppers are most of the time subsidizing my parking. The mall is on top of a train station and multiple tram lines, so there are a lot of pedestrians. The mall is for the large part just restaurants. There is absolutely massive parking garage going multiple levels deep underground, and they are mostly empty.
I wish street parking was also more automated, maybe it would be good if you would get a notification "this will cost X per hour". Parking ticket because you forgot to tap your app is not fun.
Re: There may be a steep privacy cost if you park here
#250Oh, great timing. Just ended a conversation with some friends who had bought a dishwasher. The display for these new machines had been removed, so the only way to tell when the machine was really finished was to... Guess what? Download an app! I suppose I don't need to tell you all the permissions it asked for...
Personally I think I prefer devices which offload the UI to a smartphone. I was thinking of something like this years ago where you could use something like Bluetooth to push a web UI so devices like thermostats would no longer need to have a shitty UI for things like programming schedules. Unfortunately in this case the greed of the manufacturer hoping to monetize their UI has ruined an otherwise decent idea(althoug…
This could be great, if the interfaces were to adhere to some standard. Like, if there was a single web server on a chip thingie which would expose http endpoints, and even that could be replaced with something else, because the signals that it sends on the wires are also documented.
But of course, this lessens the control of the manufacturers, and increases the control of the users. So it won't happen until it's up to the manufacturers.