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OEMs aren't just connecting cars for the fun of it; the idea is to actually improve their customers' experience with the cars. But right now, we're still missing an actual killer app—and to be honest, data on how many customers renew those cell contracts for their vehicles. A survey out this week from Solace that polled 1,500 connected car owners found that they still don't really trust the technology.
[...] But the bit of Solace's survey I found most interesting was the widespread ignorance regarding data collection. Only 38 percent of connected car drivers knew that their cars could store personally identifiable information [PII] about them, with 48 percent unaware this was the case. And that's important because that PII is being viewed as a goldmine.
[...] "[The fuel companies] want to offer you more than fuel," [Ben] Volkow said. "Many times, the fuel stations are also interested in anonymized data—why do some people always stop, do they take whatever's available or a specific brand, places to build new stations, and so on."
What's more, unlike selling cars, selling data is a high-margin business—between 80- and 90-percent profit. "A big part of the investment is already done," he said. "The databases are built, SIMs and modems are in the cars; they've crossed the Rubicon."
[...] Volkow thinks that drivers will be happy to share this data, as long as they get some value out of it, like free servicing or micropayments per mile traveled. But he also thinks consumer education is vital. "People tend to be more demanding when it comes to cars; they don't think of them as the same as mobile devices. You have to convince them there's a benefit," he told me.
Source: ArsTechnica
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:55AM (22 children)
The day I purchase a car with a SIM in it, that SIM will come out. Or, at the very least, the antenna will suffer some injury, rendering the SIM incapable of reporting on me. What are they gonna do - pass a law that I can't do that? Screw them. I owe the corporations nothing by way of data.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:02AM (10 children)
The privilege of not being tracked will cost you 5x the mandatory insurance premium, citizen.
You seem to want to hide something about your driving, why would we want to insure you?
Make that 15x, because I could have to pay for your stolen car, when others would just be found easily.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:08AM (8 children)
And thus, insurance will no longer be insurance but it becomes a savings account because when you know how much 'insuring' X will cost you, you'll make damn sure that the owner of X contributes more than that because like heck are you ever going to repay him more than what you made him contribute. Welcome to the world...
But, hey, the free market works, amirite? The customer benefits from the free market, amirite?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:17AM
Since car insurance is mandatory in many states, governments have a responsibility to outlaw such abusive behavior. Yeah, I know, it's too funny.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:21AM (2 children)
Not sure if I'm reading your post correctly. An insurance policy basically is a "savings account" today. That account is in the insurance company's name, and the insurance company invests that account into it's portfolio. That is, your money doesn't sit around in a coffer somewhere, the company is using that money to make money. But, of course, you have no right or title to any of that money, nor to the profits gained by that money.
Of course, if you have enough money to put into a proper "savings account", you may become self insured. Trucking companies do that routinely. The insurance companies were skirting the edges of being to damned greedy, and raping the trucking companies. So, even smaller companies found it to be more profitable to put a few million dollars into an escrow account, and become self insured. Of course, there is risk involved. If you are operating twenty trucks, and you have the minimum in escrow to cover all those trucks, then you suffer several accidents, you can be wiped out. Liability for truck accidents gets outright crazy - especially because there are ambulance chasing lawyers who jump into every truck accident they discover. The same injuries that might cost 100,000 in an auto accident are pumped up to millions if a truck is at fault.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:38PM (1 child)
I could be wrong, but I think AC's point is that in the past, insurance was often used for exceptionally unlikely events -- the kind of events that, for example, not every person would expect to occur within their own lifetime.
For example, let's say the chances of having your house burn down to have a catastrophic loss that would require complete re-building happens to 1 in 30 people over the course of their lifespan. (I took a look at some internet links, and that seems a reasonable ballpark figure.) It doesn't make sense for the average person to try to save that much money, because for most people, the event will never occur. (Lesser fires that still cause significant damage are more common, but the average cost from a home fire appears in the $20,000 range, an order of magnitude lower than a complete home replacement on average, and something that could potentially be saved for by more people.)
Point is that insurance companies often were intended to cover that sort of catastrophic unexpected event. If 1 in 30 people suffer a complete loss to their home in the course of a lifetime, and that loss averages say $300,000 (including cost of rebuilding and lost goods), insurance companies would need to charge $10,000 over a lifespan on average to break even for a catastrophic fire policy. Of course, they have overhead and various other costs, so maybe they need to charge $15,000 or even $20,000, but the point is that they don't need to charge $300,000 from a single customer.
AC's point seems to be that insurance companies in some circumstances are no longer operating like that -- i.e., as pooled risk managers of a pool of money -- but rather insist on charging more than a customer would ever be likely to take out, regardless of that customer's actual chances of having a catastrophic event in their lifetime.
That seems unlikely to happen, so insurance companies aren't really "savings accounts." For car insurance, for example, most people tend to think of their coverage for collision or comprehensive and what happens if their car is totaled. But that's not really why you NEED car insurance. You NEED car insurance for liability and such, in case you get sued and owe someone hundreds of thousands of dollars for injuries or damage. Every reasonable person should be able to "self-insure" for the cost of replacing their own car... if you can't, you're probably buying a car that's too expensive for you to afford and/or have problems saving money in a reasonable fashion. But you can't necessarily anticipate a freak accident that could hold you liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in injuries/damage, and most people certainly can't plan for that from a financial perspective.
THAT is the most essential reason for insurance -- to pay out in cases where an individual could never be reasonably expected to afford the cost of a one-time catastrophic financial event. Otherwise, yes, insurance for lesser things often does function as a sort of "savings account."
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Sunday February 25 2018, @04:41PM
What the insurance companies are trying to do is to determine what each individual will cost them over their lifetime, and then charge that individual that much (plus overhead, etc.). It will never be perfect obviously, but the more data they can slurp up, the better profile they can build up on individuals.
To use your example, they may have considered house fires basically random - sure, they could adjust their rates based upon things like geographic areas knowing broad factors like climate, lightning strike risks, and things like that. But other than that they really didn't know who's house would be the one that catches on fire.
Now with big data, they can actually build up profiles. Do any of the occupants smoke? Do they park their car in an attached garage (small, but a bigger risk than most would think)? What's their power usage like - high power usage probably means higher risk of electrical fire? What kind of heat does their house have? Do they buy lots of candles? How old are their appliances? Do they buy a Christmas tree every year? Do they cook a lot, or do they buy lots of TV dinners or eat out? Etc. Based upon that and factors you would have no idea about, you could suddenly end up paying a lot for your fire insurance. Or maybe even find that no one is willing to insure your house.
Same thing with automobiles - Where do you drive? How often? What time? How fast do they accelerate? How hard to they use the brakes? How fast? Are they using their cellphone while driving? How often do they fiddle with the infotainment system? Are they along or with passengers most of the time? What kind of music do they listen to? How loud? Do they use their turn signals? Do they use cruise control? etc. They more data they can slurp up, the less it's going to look like insurance and the more they'll turn it into a savings account.
What's truly scary is health insurance. At least a lot of the stuff above is things that you have some control over, or behaviors you can modify. But the same thing applies to things like cancer - right now it's essentially random to them. But if they can get a hold of your genetic information and start sorting out the people who will likely cost them a lot in expensive medical treatments, they could end up creating a large group of people forced to pay outrageous rates for health insurance - or may even find they are uninsurable. All for something that they absolutely no control over and cannot change.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:56AM (3 children)
Actually, welcome to insurance. It never operated any differently than that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:08AM (1 child)
Commercial insurance providers operate like that, but the concept of risk sharing started with shipments split over different boats to lessen the individual risk of one sinking.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:49AM
Ok. Not seeing the point of that, but actual risk sharing behavior probably goes back tens to hundreds of millions of years. For example, having a zillion offspring makes each one less likely to survive, but increases the odds that some will survive to propagate their genes onward.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:04PM
"an insurance policy basically is a "savings account""
No it isn't. An insurance policy is a ponsi scheme, where you've agreed in advance to loose all your money except in certain very specific circumstances.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @11:52PM
Full coverage insurance is for goyim. If you're signing up to be financially abused, you're likely willing to endure privacy abuses as well.
While the market will decide on the optimal mix of financial vs. privacy abuse, it's unreasonable to expect an equilibrium at 0% privacy abuse.
Anybody concerned about privacy can self-ensure against damage/theft and buy only liability insurance, which wouldn't be made any cheaper or more effective by the surveilance described in the article.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @04:13AM
I removed the spy box from my car. It was receiving two antenna lines, I assume one was GPS, the other was a mobile connection to do the manufacturer's OnStar like thing.
It was manufactured by Continental, and I opened it up to see what was inside, but nothing I knew.
The car operates fine, but I can imagine future versions refusing to start if the car cannot communicate with the spy box.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:13AM
Is there a site that rates new cars in this regard?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:20AM (5 children)
AFAIK, the easiest way is to just remove the fuse that powers it. On GM/Onstar it used to be on a separate fuse from everything else making this easy to do by popping one fuse and not affecting anything else. Your owner's manual should have the list of fuses in your car with their affected systems... or search the net for the information.
Personally, I currently have a car that I bought new with a lifetime powertrain warranty. No spybox, no GPS. I don't plan on replacing it if I can avoid it.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:35AM (4 children)
Incidentally, speaking of fuse boxes, if you are in a position where you have to abandon your car for a few days in a questionable area ( say, the parking lot at the airport ), removing the fuse for your fuel pump and powertrain control module will greatly frustrate a thief that just wants to hotwire and drive off.
Your car will be dead until it gets its fuses back, and most thieves don't want to attract a lot of attention to themselves trying to troubleshoot to find out just what you did. To me even sneaker, put known blown fuses back into position, so the empty slot does not attract attention.
Your car will need to be towed. Which brings most thieves more attention than they want to attract.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday February 24 2018, @10:46AM
I need to add... on some cars, the powertrain control module may be sensitive to loss of power. On mine, it is not, but yours may be. If you have one that is sensitive to power loss, best not pull that one.. you may have to rely on fuel pump alone.
Even then, the car won't start.. just crank, crank, crank.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Funny) by Grishnakh on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:30PM
You don't have to worry about your car getting stolen at the airport. Your car can sit there for many months with your corpse inside [nypost.com] and no one will notice. It can even sit there for many years [kplr11.com].
(Score: 2, Interesting) by toddestan on Sunday February 25 2018, @05:03PM (1 child)
For most any newer car, the thieves know they can't just hotwire it and drive off thanks to the built-in security. Often bringing in a tow truck, hooking up the car, and driving off with it in tow is the plan. So long as they act like they are supposed to be there picking up the car, they know they generally won't get questioned about it. Once they have the car back an their shop, they can troubleshoot it at their leisure, assuming they even care before chopping the car up for parts.
However, what you say does work well for older cars - especially if the car looks like it may not always start anyway. And it also works against the newer method of illegitimately obtaining copies of the real vehicle key, hoping in, and driving off with it. So it can't really hurt to pull out the fuses.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday February 26 2018, @08:15AM
Interesting... I wonder about leaving the steering turned all the way to the left or right, and locked into position so as to make lifting the rear and towing quite difficult.
I have been warned about towing my van by lifting the front and dragging, as the transmission fluid pumps are driven from the engine side of the transmission, and without the torque converter being driven, none of the hydraulics on the transmission will work - because the transmission fluid line pressure pump is not being driven. This places the transmission in such a state that towing will completely ruin the transmission.
I do not know if this is true for all automatic transmissions. Its just what I read on the truck forums regarding my Ford E4OD transmission. They tell me if I need to be towed, make sure the guy lifts the rear end and drags the front, not the other way around, or puts it on a flatbed, which for me, is a pretty darned big flatbed.
I can't stop a determined thief, but maybe I can make it frustrating enough that the thief will take his business to someone else. All I really know to do is booby-trap the thing so as to make it very frustrating... like programming it to shut down when it sees vehicle speed go to zero. And refuse to start back up. Intended to make him the center of attention at the traffic snarl in the intersection.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:24AM
I'm with you, but you'll have great difficulty finding it. If you ever look inside a very small, recent cell phone, you'll realize how small the needed circuitry is, including antenna: strip circuit or ceramic resonator. So it can be hidden anywhere, and it could be integrated onto any auto electronics circuit board. It doesn't need to have great RF linking- as long as it can dump its data when it's in range of a cell tower, it's fine.
You'd want to use a highly directional antenna and RF detector, and even then it's not going to transmit all the time, so you have to catch it in the act.
Better to stick with older cars like I do. It's much cheaper. You just have to be smart about maintenance.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:36AM (1 child)
Runaway! Check the back of your neck. A slight, very slight, lump that has been there since you were "in the Navy", as Village People say? Have you ever been around an RFID reader? There is only one way to be sure. Put your entire head into a microwave. You will have to defeat the door safety switch, but for a mechanical redneck like yourself this should pose no problem. Nuke yourself for 30 seconds. That should be enough to neutralize the chip the Government put in you. What are they going to do? Revoke your VA benefits? (Oh, actually, they might do that. . . But it's worth it for Freedumb!!).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:50PM
It will also neutralize the chip the aliens put in when they kidnapped you.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:01AM (13 children)
I can only speak for myself, I'm afraid some of you will prove him right, in your case.
In mine, he's absolutely wrong. Because I understand.
He doesn't need to track *me* to track seasonal etc. variations in demand. Input and output by site is sufficient for the legitimate uses he posits. There is absolutely no need to introduce individual tracking to provide that value.
The cases where individual tracking is valuable are much more rare, and tend to be a bit nefarious.
A decent person would consciously avoid enabling them.
Best I can figure the last decent person on earth must have expired around the time of my 3rd birthday.
*sigh*
Please, prove me wrong.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:09AM (6 children)
People who know that their car tracks them will not drive recklessly, for fear of fines and insurance costs.
By not driving dangerously, they are likely to save the children.
All should want to save the children.
Enjoy your future tracking, and your info being sold to the highest bidder, for it helps to save the children.
40000 people are killed on the road every year in the US, despite the highest density of cops in any civilized country. You can easily save 20000 lives a year by making sanction automatic through tracking.
Fuck your freedom, we can save lives!
What? They could vote D more than R, because richer people are less likely to get killed on the road ?
Screw that! Kill the children!
Conclusion: if you want to save your freedom, not matter what its cost is, make it a partisan issue.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:51AM (3 children)
It's almost as if you didn't realize that simply having cops does nothing at all to reduce the causes of negligent driving?
Oh, what's that? Genuine retard. Geeze, sorry, carry on then good chap!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:49AM
Somebody did something bad. A car was involved. You know where. You know approximately when. You do not know who.
Database query: Give me list of all cars in this spot between these times.
Helps narrow down the search quite a bit... eh?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:37AM (1 child)
Arik, I think you completely missed bob_super's point. He was being sardonic (mostly). He was mocking the tracking and excessive policing by pointing out the absurd justifications being given for govt. heavy-handedness.
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:10AM
Super_bob? Unheard of! Unlikely! Was he not rather being sarcastic? Or possibly pedantic? Or suasively sardine-ic? Something is fishy.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:08PM (1 child)
I'm forced to disagree with you. Some, probably many, people are skilled in certain areas and clueless in others. I've known an excellent mechanic who is a lousy and reckless driver. I've observed many who appear to fit into that categorization.
Look, just let me ask how current are your personal backups? You *know* that backups are important, yet most people don't keep them current. It doesn't matter how skilled you are. Well, it does matter. If you're skilled you have the capability to keep your backups current. But this sure doesn't mean you do. (Mine are currently three days old, not bad, but they should be more current.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday February 26 2018, @04:06AM
You've missed the point, which was best illustrated in "the fifth element": future systems will directly rat you to the cops and insurance company.
Just went over the speed limit? Here's a little voice replacing your music or phone, telling you how much the ticket will be.
Even if not instantaneous: Drive all day, get home to a mail from your insurance agent telling you that you've been bumped into the next higher rate based today's car report.
How many times will people get their wallet tazed before they start to comply? The ones who don't will quickly lose their license. Did you know you will have to scan your license for your car to start? You had better be in the same weight ballpark as the license says, or it won't...
Welcome to the future, citizen... Technology will save lives. You may resume singing silly songs about freedom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:13AM (4 children)
And no-one will rebel, because they will all be told that 'by letting us track you, you save 5 bucks on your insurance premium' and everyone will wet their panties right then and there. Short term gain for the win! Are you telling me that I can save 5/half-year bucks now even though it'll cost me 1000 bucks in the future? Jesus fucking Christ, where the fuck do I go to sign up right now using my own blood? /That/ will be how 95 to 99 percent of everyone will react!
'We' think about as far ahead as the lifespan of a butterfly these days; that's one of the big problems we need to tackle. Fix that and stupid shit like what this article describes wouldn't fly anymore... (I can hope that that would at least be the case, can't I?)
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:53AM (3 children)
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:04AM (2 children)
I will pay you $10/year for exclusively using my .MP3 player.
Terms of Business:
1) You have no other program capable of playing .MP3. You hold this application harmless for any damages resulting from going through your computer to delete any programs it finds that may abrogate this agreement.
2) You agree to always have internet connectivity so my player can report to the MPAA what song you are playing and if it is licensed to you.
3) You agree the party receiving the premium is totally responsible for any copyright infringement we may suspect.
For a limited time only, the hand of business is extended. Act now while available. In a few minutes, the hand will retract and you will have lost out on the opportunity to shake the hand.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:33AM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:47AM
I have trackers on some of my stuff. ( actually Android primitives. ). They are for MY use.
I have seen them for quite some time to tell parents where their kid is... ( or where their spouse is! ).
If you have an account with TING, you can add extra SIM cards cheap. They have a modest - something like $6 monthly "cover charge" per active SIM, and additional services, calls, SMS, internet is extra, with all activity from all sims lumped together to make the bill.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @01:00AM
Arik, why do you always wrap your entire comments in the "tt" tag? Are your comments so special that they need to stand out from the comments made by other users? The use of a different font disrupts the visual flow. This may be your intention, but I for one can never be bothered reading comments formatted like that (even if they're marked as +5 insightful). It's a PITA.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:05AM (1 child)
And all to serve single purpose: squeeze even more money out of everything and everyone around...
It's never enough, is it? There's always that extra drop to be squeezed out of that husk of a lemon-corpse before it should be thrown out. And when /you/ can't squeeze anything out of it anymore, you sell the lemon to some other sucker who now owns the problem of recouping whatever he paid for the lemon, from the lemon...
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:14AM
But if company X doesnt squeeze, then company Y will, and company X will go bust...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by leftover on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:33AM (1 child)
I seem to have once again forgotten the tortured logic of a company owning my behavioral information collected using a product I paid for. Google profiting from ads and information I accept because they provide services of some value to me. Fuck Facebook with a cactus. For all the other parasites out there: I never agreed that you could collect that information about me. I claim ownership and copyright on it. Perhaps I should start sending DMCA notices, what do you think? In 'American Capitalism' people as workers are a pure loss to be ruthlessly minimized. At the same time, information about those very same people, now viewed as consumers, is so valuable that it makes billionaires of asshats. Just how much Business Administration special juice does one need to drink before that juxtaposition goes down smoothly.
Actually, reversing the presumed ownership of information would make it a rationale for providing a Universal Basic Income. {chuckle}
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:08AM
Uh huh. Try to enforce that..
That's why I claim copyright is an unworkable concept.
USA-ians pledged allegiance to the Flag in exchange for Justice for All.
In my mind, telling one faction they CAN dishonor Copyright, but expect another faction to honor it, has just abrogated that pledge.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:46AM
I have Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) [wikipedia.org] which has been well controlled for fifteen years through the use of a CPAP [wikipedia.org] machine.
For most of the time I've been using such machines, they've had an SD card which recorded my usage patterns (to aid in treatment, as explained by my pulmonologist). Last year, I was provided with a new machine which had not only an SD card, but both a WiFi tranceiver and a cellular modem.
When I asked the medical staff about it, they were unconcerned and just wanted to make sure that I knew how to ensure that the SD card was collecting data, with the strong suggestion that I should bring the SD card when seeing my pulmonologist.
They did not discourage the use of, or instruct me in how to disable the network connectivity. I took that upon myself, as I had no idea to whom or for what purpose such data would be sent.
Several weeks later, I received a phone call from the *manufacturer* wanting to know how "things were going," and encouraged me to enable the network connectivity on the device. I informed them that the data collected was my personal medical information and that I would only share that data with my doctor. I further informed them that "how things were going" was none of their damn business.
The rather pleasant phone rep continued to be pleasant, but seemed confused about why I was unwilling to share private medical data with her company.
The moral of this story is that these days, any manufacturer who can fit some sort of network connectivity into their device will do so in an effort to boost profits using your personal information.
Since most people are oblivious ("wow! this device must be really advanced! It's got WiFi/mobile tech in it!") to the *actual* purposes behind this sort of behavior, they happily comply with requests to hand over any information without question or concern.
Education about this stuff is, iMHO, quite important. However, in an environment where someone with 20+ years of infosec experience tries to explain to their family members why putting every imaginable app on their smartphone isn't the smartest idea, they're dismissed as not knowing what they're talking about, one can only shake one's head and sigh.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:25AM (18 children)
I regard not availing myself of discounts the price I pay for not being tracked
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Spamalope on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:57AM (3 children)
It's not a discount when they raise the non-card price when the introduce the cards.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:16AM (1 child)
That is probably the main reason I no longer shop at my local "Card Price" grocery store and drive out of my way to get to WalMart.
I now get even my pharmacy through WalMart. That started when CVS went "Card Price". I did not want anyone tracking my prescriptions, and I know that the Card is a way of getting around State and Federal privacy laws. I know a lot of people still buy their stuff there, but its probably a loyalty thing, as businesses continue to test just how much crap people will put up with before they expend the effort to find alternatives.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:17PM
The thing is, WalMart is attempting to become a monopoly, and you are supporting them in that. I *think* that is probably even worse. (And don't think that Amazon is an improvement.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:54PM
They already do this in Australia. "Plug in our tracker box to receive X discount" not mentioning that the price is raised by X if you refuse.
They want to force drivers under 25 to always use them. Be tracked by GPS everywhere.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:05AM (9 children)
I'd happily accept someone else's loyalty card if they offered it to me.
I don't use them myself, and when asked for one by cashiers, I cheerfully inform them that loyalty cards are against my religion.
Which isn't strictly true (I'm an atheist and, as such, have no religion), but expresses my feelings about them in a way just about anyone can understand.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:13AM (6 children)
Telling cashiers I didn't want to be tracked led many of them to regard me as a conspiracy theorist.
I'm not but I do experience paranoia from time to time. To know that I'm being tracked makes that paranoia far worse.
You might regard that as my problem and not theirs. How would you feel if cashiers gave you a bloody nose every time you shopped?>
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:32AM (4 children)
I hear you MDC. I don't like being tracked either, so I do what little I can to minimize it.
Also, I just don't care what (almost) everyone else thinks about me or anything else.
But I don't tell them I don't want to be tracked. I tell them "it's against my religion." That usually elicits a chuckle and then they shut up and ring up my purchases.
I don't regard it as a problem at all, yours, mine or theirs, as it doesn't impact me in the slightest. You see, I'm not a cashier, so there's little chance of me being one that services you.
To answer your question, I'd probably get pretty tired of having to go to court all the time to testify against the cashiers for assault.
Do your consider "To know that I'm being tracked makes that paranoia far worse." to be a problem? If so, do you view it as your problem, their problem, someone else's problem, some combination of those or something else?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday February 24 2018, @10:10AM (1 child)
I expect that if I didn't have Schizoaffective Disorder I wouldn't care about being tracked. Many linux fanbois dislike being tracked because that's the Libertarian way to feel, but I don't share that attitude.
I have to take great care to avoid becoming symptomatic. None of my medicines are completely effective; sometimes they stop working at all.
When my paranoia gets really bad I experience visual hallucinations in which I see cops everywhere. I call them "The Thought Police". My deepest fear [warplife.com] is that I will become unable to distinguish real cops from hallucinations, and if so I might try to defend myself from them.
That's commonly known as "Officer Assisted Suicide" as well as "Suicide By Cop". My deepest fear is commonly the deepest fear of law enforcement officers.
I once went to the Emergency Room because I was losing my ability to distinguish the two. The emergency room doc said all the shrinks were gone, and that I should return on Monday. I explained in vivid detail what was likely to happen if I really had to wait.
He paged a resident who took an hour to drive from Halifax to Truro. She showed up in a scandalous red cocktail dress, high heels and black fishnet stockings. She told me to increase the dosage of Risperdal. I told her I had tried that on my own but was too sedated. She told me to split the doses between morning and bedtime. That worked quite well.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:25PM
Well, I do not have your described disorder. And I can speak for a lot of people -- we don't want to be tracked, not by the government, and not by companies looking to sell our data repeatedly so they can advertise to us better to try to get us to buy more things.
Some of us just want to be left alone, but privacy is turning out to be the most expensive of luxuries that few will be able to afford.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:16PM (1 child)
I just say no. It works every time. No explanation necessary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:37PM
Nancy Reagan, is that you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:56PM
I gave them my old postcode from another city once. The cashier challenged me on it. I named all the major local roads, shopping centers and told her to look it up. Then she asked for my phone number
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:01AM (1 child)
Absolutely! I have several dozen "loyalty" cards in a jar at home.
These are cards I found on the sidewalk, parking lot, wherever. I have no idea whatsoever who they were issued to.
If I absolutely *have* to use a Card store, I fish through through my box to retrive whatever card the business will want to see.
The fact the legitimate owner of that account gets credited with my purchase does not concern me. I just want the 20-30 percent out-the-door discount.
Especially if what I wanted to buy was something like a bottle of likker. It can really add up on a $25 bottle of hooch. I have to pay a $5 penalty for not presenting their card. I just don't want it on record that I will buy that stuff from time to time.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:07AM
One of my neighbors gets scores of application blanks at Ralphs. He is always "losing" his card.
Turns out Ralphs is the cheapest place nearby to get alcohol if you have a card.
So, he gets the cards, and hands them out to the homeless.
They buy the alcohol, he gets credited, then uses the bonus points to help pay for gasoline.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:56AM (3 children)
Usually you can just enter a phone number.
Just pick one at random, and get the discount.
If it doesn't work, they'll have a card to scan at the register.
Cheers!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:07AM (1 child)
That is true in many places. And I've taken advantage of that many times when traveling.
But not where I live. Here, you either have the card, sign up for the card or you're SOL.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:16PM
Do they verify any information? At two places where I've actually signed up for loyalty cards, I've given them completely fake information -- fake name, fake address, fake phone number, etc. I've used the cards fine. I've never had a problem. No one has ever asked me for proof of any of the information I used to sign up.
Of course, if you do something like use your credit card to shop there, it wouldn't surprise me if they gleaned some info from that and your data got aggregated with real-world data. But if you're using a credit card to shop anywhere, you should be expecting to be tracked anyway. If you pay in cash with a loyalty card that's attached to fake info, doesn't that solve your problem?
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:12PM
The phone number I give is (area code of your choice)-555-1212.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:16AM
It seems that such data should be
1. owned (copyright) by the person about whom the data is concerned
2. legally mandated opt-in for data collection (not opt-out)
Is there another way or better way to control "This Sort of Thing"?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday February 24 2018, @10:16AM (1 child)
That might sound just like web server log file analysis, but the difference is that analytics correllates one's use of many different services such as websites.
Some websites use more than one analytics vendor. Political candidate web sites are by far the worst.
It's straightforward to blackhole the web bug servers with /etc/host, but to do that on an iPhone - which really does have a hosts file - you need to jailbreak it. I have chosen not to jailbreak mine because I want to ensure the app I'll finish writing Real Soon Now works well on other non-jailbroken phones.
I once attended a presentation by three different mobile analytics vendors. Each of them emphasized that their service was free of charge to mobile app developers. One of them displayed a photograph of her company's data center.
I'll write that again but real slow so you're sure to understand it: D A T A C E N T ER.
Data centers are costly, yet their SDKs are free of charge.
Surely someone must be paying for those data centers.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @12:59AM
Yeah and how e.g. google and facebook are free. Because their hundreds(?) of datacenters running custom hardware must be real cheap too.
Apparently 'follow the money' is way too complicated for the average sheep...
(Score: 1) by noneof_theabove on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:06PM
If you are not the customer then you are the product.
Welcome to the United Corporations and Churches of America [UCCA ex-USA]
Where the real product is the stock and
The true customer the stockholder.
In god we trust all others pay foreign loan shark interset.
F*CK YOUR "BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE".