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Ad Measurement Is Going High-Tech

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the they're-in-the-phone dept.

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "A media-measurement company called IMMI is giving panel participants special cellphones that can take reliable sound samples to track consumer behavior. 'Those snippets -- taken every 30 seconds and altered mathematically so any conversation is made unintelligible -- are transmitted continuously to IMMI,' the Wall Street Journal reports. 'Sounds from headphone devices such as iPods can be transmitted to the cellphones with a wireless accessory. IMMI has been building a database of sound signatures, with help from customers testing the company's services as well as with CD content it has licensed.' The idea is to use the sound signatures to test what media consumers are exposed to -- everything from radio music to movie trailers."

10 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Who in their right mind would go for this? by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 2, Insightful

    'Those snippets -- taken every 30 seconds and altered mathematically so any conversation is made unintelligible

    And of course the folks whose servers this stuff ends up on also have a way to unencode the original soundbite. Even if they say they can't, don't or "would never do such a thing," given the current poor behavior of media / marketing corporations, why trust them?

    1. Re:Who in their right mind would go for this? by Bonker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's fairly straightforward to destructively alter any given sound, as opposed to merely encrypting it.

      That said, as soon as this kind of data is stored anywhere, it will be subpeonaed. Google has recently demonstrated this. If law enforcement officers think they can track people with this technology, they will undoubtedly attempt to.

      Scary scenario:

      Guy picks up his kids from day care. His phone records the sound of screaming children.

      On the way home, he stops by the gym. His kids get to go swimming while he works out. His phone records the sound of grunting and groaning, with children yelling in the distance.

      Obviously, thinks some undertrained, underpaid analyst, this guy is abducting children. He notifies the police...

      It sounds completely improbable, but then again, we've all seen news stories about people who've been arrested for developing pictures taken while bathing their kids.

      --
      The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
  2. I don't get it. by spazmonkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    altered mathematically to make unintellilligible? How exactly, then, do they tell what advertising, programs, and other media you are exposed to? Something here doesn't add up. Mainly, why in the hell would people agree to be carrying around an overt bugging device with the sole stated intent of monitoring thier actions?

    1. Re:I don't get it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The point is that they're trying to get us used to be monitored at all times, under all conditions. Consider this "training" for what is probably going to follow in the coming decade, where your entire life is documented, blogged, videod and recorded from hundreds of places at once.

      Put all that together, and you can have a very interesting series of profiles on a person's behavior. With enough data behind it, you can begin to profile what type of humans do what type of things, with a good percentage of reliability.

      Of course, this is all going to be offered to us in an effort to "Save the children", or "Stop terrorism" or some other subterfuge, but we all know what it really is for: A means of control, so we (as carbon-based tax-generating machines) can continue to fuel the machine.

    2. Re:I don't get it. by Joseph_V · · Score: 2, Insightful

      One-way hashing would do this relatively easily. Similar to passwords if you hash the original content and then the tested content and they match there is a very high probability that it is the same original content. It is also irreversible (in bounded time).

      Either way I'm not picking one up, I'll go to hand-crank radio and telegrams before I become a beacon of marketing information.

  3. Re:Why must they know all this? by temojen · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Can't you just make things people need and find useful and if they need it they'll come to you?

    Yes, but that's not where the money is. The money is in making the consumer dissatisfied and convincing them that your product will satisfy them, then not satisfying them so they'll buy again.

  4. great. by snark23 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The cell phone industry is a nice counter-example for anyone who insists that a free market is always good for the consumer, unless you redefine "consumer" as "wireless provider". NOBODY wants to carry around a phone that does what this article describes. Even those who aren't concerned about the privacy implications are going to be nonplussed by the fact that their batteries suddenly only last half as long because their phones are so busy processing and transmitting this marketing trash.

    And to broaden my rant: Who are these people who think that playing TV programs and games on a phone is a great idea? Where are these people? I would love to see all of the marketing and R&D dollars poured into these stupid, stupid features go instead into producing smaller phones that have increased range, longer battery life and a user interface not designed by a team of raccoons. Is that so ridiculous?

  5. Re:From Bad to Worse by WhiteWolf666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Did you miss the previous posting about AT&T delivering network traffic to the NSA, which unsurprisingly comes 2-3 years after all the hubbub about carnivore?

    Did you miss the stories about how MSN, AOL, and Yahoo had no problem turning over whatever information requests the gov't had about search usage?

    I'm not too paranoid, and I don't think the gov't can process this stuff fast enough for it to matter, but don't be naive enough to believe that every major corporation out there respects your privacy. As it is, AT&T owns Cingular. Cingular routes plenty of its cell traffic over AT&T's backbone. I'm sure they've already sent some of your conversations to the NSA.

    --
    WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
  6. Why must they know all this?-The Amazing Kreskan. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "Doesn't there get a point when marketing departments consume too much information in the quest to find out the spending habbits of every sentient creature in the universe?"

    The problem isn't "too much" information. It's finding the "correct" information.

    "I mean... Can't you just make things people need and find useful and if they need it they'll come to you?"

    Flip answer: and they're going to determine this through what? Mindreading? Also things cost. Success costs. Failures cost even more. Are you willing to pay more for their failures?

    "Or am I mistaken... Are they just trying to convince all sentient beings they must buy things they never knew they needed to buy?"

    Be nice of you to save them the trouble and tell them what to make, then promise to purchase.

    "Either way... I hope they pay the panel participants good money for tracking them around town."

    Focus group I'm going to be a part of pays over $200.

  7. Re:From Bad to Worse by drooling-dog · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I'm not too paranoid, and I don't think the gov't can process this stuff fast enough for it to matter,

    They don't have to process it "fast enough for it to matter". It just has to be on file, for whenever it happens that someone with the authority to look at it has a reason to do so. That reason could be legitimate, or maybe not so much. It could even be quite personal, and totally unrelated to the avowed purposes for which the information was gathered in the first place.