Smart phones share data unbeknownst to users
By Elizabeth Dwoskin, Wall Street Journal
Fan Zhang, the owner of Happy Child, a trendy Asian restaurant in downtown Toronto, knows that 170 of his customers went clubbing in November. He knows that 250 went to the gym that month, and that 216 came in from Yorkville, an upscale neighborhood.
Businesses are tracking their customers and building profiles of their daily habits using a network of startups that have placed sensors in restaurants, yoga studios and other sites. Chris Gilpin, founder of one such site, Turnstyle, joins the News Hub.
The sensors, each about the size of a deck of cards, follow signals emitted from WiFi-enabled smartphones. That allows them to create portraits of roughly 2 million people’s habits as they have gone about their daily lives, traveling from yoga studios to restaurants, to coffee shops, sports stadiums, hotels, and nightclubs.
Funny how the things which should matter most gather no comments. A parking meter though? Well that’s another story.
It really bothers me that we have no say in this intrusive practice. I don’t want people knowing what I do to market to me. It’s nobody’s business what we do in our daily lives. I hate advertising and resent the fact I can’t even search something online without then getting bombarded with ads. Makes me not want to patronize those companies at all. Where are our rights?
Just some thoughts on electronic snooping.
My grandfather, who was 75 when he died in 1962 was the first person I heard say “There is no such thing as a free lunch”. I am pretty sure he didn’t invent the saying, so the basic warning has been around for a long time.
These days, we are so tied up in internet technology and needing to be “with it” and have access to all sorts of things instantly that we lived without without before, that we fail to think about what the total costs, (in many more currencies than dollars), of all the conveniences really is.
We already have advertisers doing all they can to find out where we are at any given time, and what our habits are. The government is now able to tap into all this activity. Personal surveillance is incredible, and only a matter of time before we become visibly affected in negative ways as somple citizens.
It is only a matter of time before more massive internet crime than we have ever seen also figures it out. Thru your and their smart phones, they’ll accost you when you are in your habit patterns, wait at your car. knock you in the head and what is yours is theirs.
Anybody who doesn’t believe this did not read about the Target Stores personal information theft. 70 million violations of privacy.
We are the only ones who can limit the growth of this kind of activity. It will be hard to do, but if for instance, enough of us just quit frequenting businesses who do the unwanted intrusion into our lives via internet/phone and junk mail it could change. Don’t participate in anything if it has the disclosure that you have to accept the distribution of your information to participate. This is in the incredibly small print.
On a personal basis, I do this already.
Would you pay a buck a month for a browser that didn’t flood your screen and soak up your bandwidth with unwanted crap?
Google even ASSUMES you want to see, as they put it, relevent advertising.
Published in 1949, the book “1984” describes what is happening today (official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of the past).
George Orwell much like Jules Verne was a futurist whose forecasts are coming true if 30 years late.
Observer, the quote ‘there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch’ or TANSTAAFL, came from Robert A. Heinlein. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Just an FYI.
There’s also a book entitled TANSTAAFL; The Economic Strategy For Environmental Crisis, by Edwin G. Dolan. A pretty good economics book, if you’re interested.
tahoeadvocate I do believe all of this has been happening for a very very long time centuries even. nothing new here. Even in 1949 it was happening. Hoovers FBI was spying on everyone thru both Rebublician and Democratic administrations. Technology has just made it easier.
I took a class called “Futuristics” back at the beginning of the 70’s. The instructor started off by asking who we thought had been most accurate about predicting the future. Most thought it was the scientists, but it turns out that it was fiction writers. They got it much closer to reality. I think that’s still true.
And the people responsible for making the technology of the future are the most important people.
You also took that in the 70s, when computers were the size of cars. A lot has changed. Your worldview has not and it is far removed from reality.
It doesn’t get much more delusional or fact free than that-way out there in crazy land and proud of it
Can’t you two make a comment without insulting somebody?? That was unnecessary.
Ever thought of turning off the phone? Will you die if the world isn’t in touch with you for a couple of hours?
Invasive, loss of freedoms.
Thanks Sunriser2. For many years my phone stays in the car, turned off, when I enter a business, especially a restaurant. Our US military first used this back in the 80’s to keep track of special forces and special individuals. Every time there is something new for our military, it ends up in the private sector around 10 years later.
Just leave your phone in the car turned off, when you enter any establishment. I really enjoy not being connected at times.
By the way, do you know who invests the most funds on technology creation? They also used to attempt to hire the top graduates from the Harvard law school.
I find it funny that so many people are dead set against having a chip implanted in their body, yet most of those same people will carry a cell phone on their person 24/7.
Go figure!
(and I am by no means advocating humans being chipped, just making an observation)