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Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

xfinity.com

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Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#421

Post by dcow »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #375
dcow wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting a language preference cookie is not tracking and I will die on that hill. The law requires consent before using a cookie to store even a mundane option that was just directly modified by a user. Collecting a crash report is not tracking a user. Even first party product analytics is not tracking a user. Tracking a user across domains using a 3rd party aggregator to serve add and do attribution is the evil. And…

>The law requires consent before using a cookie to store even a mundane option that was just directly modified by a user. If your are referring to GDPR this is wrong. GDPR does not require consent for strictly necessary cookies. >Strictly necessary cookies — These cookies are essential for you to browse the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the site. Cookies that allow web shops to hold…

No I am referring to the EPD as I state in my comment, an acronym you should know since it’s defined in the explainer you link. As someone who has experience in this area, it’s not as simple as “just use the Accept-Language header it will be fine”.

In any event, that’s besides then point. There are non-tracking cookies that get swept up in the EPD’s consent requirements. This causes way more popups than needed to address the real problem of users being tracked and profiled across domains. The result is users being inundated with consent banners on freaking homepages.

If you changed the requirements to “consent is required for marketing cookies” then I’d wager it would vastly reduce the need for these banners. You could show the banner interstitially as soon as a customer entered your funnel and wanted to try to perform spooky attribution.

In my experience the banners are useless because they don’t actually tell me whether the site is tracking me or not (the behavior I presumably want to prevent). They just tell me whether the site uses cookies, which I’m okay with 99% of the time, so I just click yes.

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#422

Post by barnas2 »

wil421 wrote: post #384
margalabargala wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. That misses the broader reality. What you're missing, is that you are allowed to use your own modem. You can purchase an Arris Surfboard, and use that. They still have control of that modem, but can gather no downstream data. That the devices are not distributed by Comcast personally is not relevant to you being able to do this.

You can’t get top speed or unlimited data with your own modem.

Not sure about Comcast, but I have no issues with Cox. I'm getting 2.5Gbps with my own equipment (Ubiquiti UCI, which is $$$, but other cheaper modems also work).

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#424

Post by barnas2 »

wil421 wrote: post #385
slt2021 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

docsis modem costs $30, wireless AP costs another $50, add repeaters if you want. I have been using my setup for 9 years and never paid a dime in rent of equipment. the setup is plug-n-play / one youtube video away

I guess you don’t want the fastest speed or no data cap. We easily surpass the 1TB cap with 4K streaming and WFH video calls.

I use Cox and get their fastest speed (2.5Gbps) with the option for unlimited data if I wanted it, and I'm using my own equipment.

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#425

Post by dcow »

jraph wrote: post #416
nightpool wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct under the GDPR but incorrect under the older ePrivacy Directive. EU sites need to be compliant with both, and so the cookie banners persist.

Are you sure? That's new to me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPrivacy_Directive says > The Directive provision applicable to cookies is Article 5(3). Recital 25 of the Preamble recognises the importance and usefulness of cookies for the functioning of modern Internet and directly relates Article 5(3) to them but Recital 24 also warns of the danger that such instruments may present to privacy. The change in the law…

Read: https://gdpr.eu/cookies/ …after you dismiss the cookie banner, of course. I add this not only as a quip but to highlight that even a gdpr explainer website which you’d expect isn’t doing the evil thing of tracking users, has interpreted the relevant laws such that it finds it necessary to promt the user in order to simply explain the gdpr and epd/epr…

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#426

Post by andrewaylett »

dcow wrote: post #300
idiotsecant wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law do you think mandates those annoying cookie popups?

It would be nice if you could argue, “well, just be a good site and don’t use marketing cookies”, but the ePrivacy Directive requires consent for performance and preference cookies too. Perhaps a liberal reading arguably allows classification of certain statistics and preferences functions to be strictly necessary, like “I wouldn’t provide this service without crash reporting because I’d go insane so it’s strictly ne…

The GDPR standard of "consent" (as I suspect you know, but as context for my opinion) is applied to the ePrivacy Directive and relates to any cookies that are not strictly necessary.

I do not like using the legal basis of "consent" for processing personal data, and I would much prefer not to need to use consent for placing cookies. As it is, in my personal capacity I can get away without placing cookies at all .

If we had access to other lawful bases for placing cookies, I'd like to think we could work out way towards phasing out any blanket consent. I'm sure "legitimate interests" would be abused and over-relied-on. But it already is, and if we're not arguing with people about whether the "consent" they rely on is legitimate then maybe we'll have more time to worry about whether companies are using other bases appropriately.

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#427

Post by margalabargala »

boston_clone wrote: post #410
margalabargala wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not everywhere, sure, only in America. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/list-of-approved-ca... I can't believe I'm defending Comcast on the internet but here I am, I guess between them and you I'm siding with the entity currently being less of an ass to me?

Idk what you’re even defending with that article, but that’s your cross to bear. Mimicking my speech pattern then trying to say I’m being the ass is not going to hold up, however. Elsewhere I posted that I used to work in this space and have first-hand knowledge that the majority of people do not use third party modems. That is a fact. Just because people can go out and purchase a new modem and then additional wifi g…

I said you were being the ass because you called me a "shillbot".

You edited your comment to delete that, so I'll also retract my calling you an ass.

I agree with basically everything else you said.

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#428

Post by kstrauser »

reaperducer wrote: post #19
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #15

Xfinity won't give folks in certain locales (maybe everywhere in the US?) unlimited bandwidth unless they use their modem/router. This seems like a good reason that practice should be illegal.

I use a cellular connection for my internet, but my apartment building is wired with Xfinity, and probably 90% of people use it. Naturally, there is no way for me to opt out of this.

Are you in California? I'd contend there's a CCPA issue there. "I live at X address, and demand that you not collect my movement information from any of your equipment at this address or others."

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#429

Post by kstrauser »

sneak wrote: post #311
pilingual wrote: post #225

I was reading Hyatt's Privacy Policy and they mention biometrics (and even genetic information for some reason). Does this mean they can analyze all of my behavior in the hotel room? I'm not about to find out. I really liked Hyatt, too.

The ER I was seen at a few weeks ago had me sign a consent to use my data to (presumably) train AI.

Was it possible to deny it?
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