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Pay-For-Visit Advertising
theodp writes "US patent office documents released Thursday show that a startup named Pelago is seeking a patent covering Pay-For-Visit Advertising, which uses GPS, Bluetooth, or RFID on your mobile devices to track your travels to see if you wander into a place of business that appeared in an ad shown earlier on your cellphone, PDA, or laptop. To maximize ad revenue, phone calls are also tracked to see if you dial a number associated with an ad, and financial transactions are examined to see if you make a purchase from an advertiser. The application goes on to note that the system may be of interest to government agencies. Pelago just raised $7.4M from the likes of KPCB and Jeff Bezos."
i've got to think that this will create a market for phones that wont allow this kind of thing to happen. i'd go without a cell phone before i'd let myself be tracked like that everywhere i go.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Next they'll be tracking me by retinal scans to see if its REALLY ME and I didn't just loan my device to a sibling, friend or child. Then it'll be cross-referenced with my credit report and my bank account to see if I can even afford it, but they won't care - they'll just offer me a new card with a limit that is just enough to cover whatever asinine product they're trying to force at me.
and first post.
I really dont want to carry all those gadgets around, especially at the beach. So if you could just inject that RFID tag into my neck right here...
cell phones and pda uses may end have to pay the data bill for ads that they may not even want and how many people will want to waste there battery's on Bluetooth for this?
From reading the synopsis it seems that it would require the participation/consent of the mobile phone user to allow tracking. From activating bluetooth visibility, or accepting a phone with an RFID feature. It'd be interesting to see if this has any similarity to the oft-rumoured GPhone.
But why would a consumer, given the relatively low prices of cell phones, tariffs and contracts, accept this? I'm speaking from the UK but I can't imagine that US cell contracts, etc, are so prohibitively expensive that this would be an attractive form of subsidy. Especially given the potential 'government interest.'
They are going to track who I call, where I go, and what I buy...while having all of this linked to personally identifying information. Who in their right mind would subscribe to such a service? The privacy implications are mind boggling...if the police can subpena this information or the government can "silently" access it, say goodbye to the American way of life...
most of the places I got to, I got to via personal recommendation.
Not to mention, that would require a corporate agency tracking my every move. I'll just put it this way:
If you don't trust the government, ostensibly supposed to be for the benefit of the people living in its juristiction, watching your every move, how the hell can you trust a corporation, ostensibly (and in practice) supposed to be for the financial and power gain of those in cahrge of the company, to keep track of you to that extent?
Companies are trying to evaulate to see if their marketing is working or not. How dare they, I want to be flooded with adds that I don't care about, vs. showing me products and or services that may help me in life, with sites offering better tracking services they could charge more per add, thus less adds per page. But that is not the slashdot way, we want NO adds but still we want our websites to run for free even though these people deticate their lives full time to this and have expenses too. Good targeting means less adds, more revenue to web sites, and less anoyances during the day. If Big Brother wants to know your spending habbits they just need a warent and pull your bank information. No need for this crazy loosy goosy stuff, that will mostly help make your life better.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Reminds me of the scene where they are scanning your eyes and offering advertising or know what you bought last... "How did you like those t-shirts Mr. Johnson?" No thanks
I've never been one of the people that sports a tinfoil hat, and now I can't because they'll know when I go to the store, what I bought, how much I payed for it and what I was thinking when I bought it.
If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.
is probably buying the company as we type.
Sounds like just the hook to make Gphone attractive to advertisers.
without my knowledge of who, what or where, just by going to work everyday.
1. Set up a surveillance society,
2. Watch everybody all the time,
3. ???
4. Profit
Steps 1 & 2 are already happening whether we want them to or not. Its a done deal.
But the greedy little prick wants to patent it too.
God I wish I had balls that big.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
not to have a cell phone. Whenever anyone asks why I don't have a phone, my standard answer is:
"Don't need one, don't want one. Besides, why would I want people to be able to track where I am?"
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Wow! I thought big brother was a problem. Now we have to watch out for big business too.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
that cell phone hacking will be the next big wave. Of course, this will start a whole new round of DCMA shenanigans and the chase will be on between the phone companies and their customers. Bad consumer, bad!!
Terrible idea. If it is not enough that the NSA and FBI already track the behavior of citizens..*cough*...suspected terrorist without much oversight, what happens when they add this company's technology to its set of tools to monitor our activities. Looks like I'll be moving to Canada or Greenland soon...
my mom posts on slashdot.
1. Employees of a company all visit the ad of a competitor on their cellphones
2. They put all their cell phones in a box
3. A gopher takes the box of phones to the competitor's store, loiters for a few minutes, and comes back
4. UNprofit for the competitor as the pay-for-visit system deducts a bunch of money from the competitor's ad account
OK, its not very scalable, but it is amusing and will happen.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Paranoia, it's not just a mental deficiency, it's a way of life
The year was 2007, the patent was issued, it wasn't long before it went online and shortly after, the war...
Well, I guess that question wouldn't matter for a less invasive advertising platform, but what this seems to be proposing is currently impossible without the customer's explicit agreement and cooperation. So I'm wondering what they plan on giving the customer to make this ever remotely appealing?
What allows them to access my cellphone remotely and access its GPS receiver? Why would my cellphone tell them the GPS location in the first place?
Are there really phones on the market which allow this? If so, what prevents evil terrorist(tm) to do the same as this company then? Are phonemakers terrorism supporters?!one!?eleven!
let me be the first to say "Good afternoon, Mr. Yakamoto,".
t -and-mini-cooper/
http://curtismorley.com/2007/02/06/minority-repor
Personalized advertising just jumped out of the cookie jar (no, get your mind off the choc chips lardy, I'm talking browsers here) and into the real world. Somehow the idea of large corporations tracking me makes me feel a great unease, we can trust them to value money over common decency and politeness.
Wow, look at all the conspiracy theorists! Sounds like Pelago wants to make some sort of new social network that ties in with consumerism.
It might be popular, widely popular, given the density of MySpace's average fanatic.
Marketers will be able to find out just how effective their ads are. When the answer turns out to be "not at all", they'll all lose their jobs, and we'll live in an advertising-free world.
(And while I'm dreaming, I'd like a free moon pony.)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Something like 95% of patents never actually make it into production. People patent the stupidest things, just check out google patent search http://www.google.com/patents and see all the crap that people pay good money to patent. People also patent things for other reasons besides wanting to produce the invention, such as to sell the patent, or to keep a competitor from using the invention. Just because it shows up in a patent application doesn't mean it'll be coming out in the near future. Heck, there are plenty of patents for perpetual motion machines, which stopped after the patent office started demanding a working example.
FWIW, this tracking is enabled by default in virtually every phone that has the capabiliity of being commercially tracked. The phone user has to recognize that it is enabled and then go through the menus to turn it off. Not a hard thing to do, but like most things, something that is largely overlooked by the masses.
when I stop using mobile phones ... As soon as ads are on my phone, I'm done.
And for the record, I NEVER buy/go anywhere/do anything based on an ad but only on what my needs and wants really are.
Obviously I'm not the typical consumer nor will I ever be. I actually peel all the stickers and badges off of everything
I have, laptops/computers, cars, equipment, tools, etc. I just don't like the look of all that crap.
How the hell is this patentable? You've got several technologies that already exist (USB/Wifi/GSM/RFID, etc), all tied together with software. The only thing this plan describes is using the technologies for the purposes for which they were designed -- transmitting and receiving data. The USPO is CLUELESS if this gets approved!
Being a grumpy old git there are many businesses whose crappy advertising annoys me. With this new system i can write a script to hit all their websites 50 times a day and it will then cost them money every time i walk past their outlet. I may even go into the shop to say 'muahahahaha, pwned'
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Patent something that will stop this in its tracks?
My idea is a little LEAD Lined bag that will stop your phone, blackberry etc from activating this nasty invasion of privacy.
Oh sorry, that already exists. Just go out and buy one of those bags that we used to stop those pesky airport X-Rays from messing up our films when we came home from Vacation.
Seriously,
This is one nasty proposal. I don't want all this crap. How long will it be before the spammers invade these systems so that along with the ads for your favoutite fast food you get viagra and other crap blasted at you all the time.
No NO No No.
Please USPTO, Throw this in the wastebin ASAP.
Has anyone else noticed the disturbing [to me, anyway] trend towards actions being illegal if performed by a private individual, but legally acceptable if performed by a corporation, for profit?
it sounds to me like an invasion of privacy. They are using tech to track where you are and what you just watched or saw. This just sounds so intrusive, I think I'm going to be sick.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Uh... would you take targeted advertising if it meant a FREE cell phone (ie GooglePhone)? The answer is yes.
Luddite tech...
After ringing up sale, clerk says, "May I ask where you heard about us?"
Holey cats!
Calls patent attorney -- It's business method!)
Fuck. You.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
There is no god damn this should be allowed. A company tracking me through GPS and through the calls I dial, all while sending ads to me? Does anyone else see the potential for abuse, if this gets cracked, allowing stalkers to use the GPS signal to see where people go, or see who someone calls?
Geeks strike again 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Oh, yay. Yet another way for big business to keep track of places we go, the food we eat, the air we breathe.
It's only a matter of time before toilets start detecting our DNA in order to show us targeted ads on the the stall door while we take a shit.
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
I briefly talked about some of it on my blog. Good thing I did. http://geekspeaker.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!588D13 9CAFEFE462!921.entry
I've been working on a similar system for over a year. I didn't think someone was going to patent it. I assume Google has been working on a similar method for quite some time. I have diagrams that go back for over a year when I first had the idea.
I've been trying to get some folks at my company more involved but it takes forever to get my ideas moving at my company. It's pretty frustrating to see something like this get a patent on it.
The reason why this is so important is so many people spend more money via their cars which means advertising could be sucked back out of the internet in the not so near future perhaps.
And in other news, the government has announced a program that is able to predict murders before they occur, and identifies the culprit who can be arrested before committing the crime.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Maybe the whole point of this is to offer the phones and service to consumers who don't value their privacy, at no (monetary) cost? Maybe all local area calls are free, and long distance can be enabled by depositing funds to pay-as-you-go.
:)
That way, they can offer phones where the capability to track and report and snoop on the user is built in and cannot be disabled.
Some people are stupid enough to go for it - and they might also be the ones that actually buy the stuff advertised in those wonderfully helpful emails the rest of us ignore as 'spam'.
The NSA, et al, have been doing this sort of tracking and collating for years. Think of it as a lost opportunity: the NSA could have been selling ads all this time!
(straightening my tinfoil hat)
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
How are people able to track you?
If a single company patents it, it can sue everyone else who uses it into oblivion. Thus raising the advertising rates due to the monopoly, and reducing the number of applications actually using it.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Oh boy! No I can get ads popping up on my cell phone! Great! I bet they burn my mintues too!
I don't get enough banners and pop-ups on my PC.
Quick, who's the first with a tech startup to make a popup blocker for your cell phone?
You think spyware sucks now...wait until GPS goes into play.
Oh man. Wheres my type writer and crank operated phone?
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
I use Astral Projection to get most places. Take &*that*# suckers!
Where's my peyote buttons?
Quack, quack.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
There is no difference when the corporations control
the government. No difference at all.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
And I trust them absolutely not to abuse or misuse this technology. Because they never have in the past...
I'm sure you'll enjoy your new improved location-specific viagra/trans-sexual/diet-pill/stock tips. Because the greater the volume of targeted data available on you the more responsible advertisers will become. Naturally.
Quack, quack.
And here is why: This kind of "features" are the reason why open-source exists: Instead of being tracked, WE can "discover" the protocol they use, find out about some exploit, and use the nice, open-source, battery-life-friendly, human-rights compliant application we make out of it to localize THEM and boycott their products. Aaahhhh that feels great to tell someone to fuck off.
...why corporate America has more rights to my personal information than I do.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
... to see life imitate art...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
so they can track me as I go around and beat the shit out of the assholes responsible for this invasion of my privacy and the spamming of my cell phone.
Who needs to worry about big brother! We need to be more concerned with the brother who is always bumming change!
Holy Sh** Batman!
Do you want ANY entity/company to have access to all the information this system requires?
Just think, they want to know:
1 - Your GPS location. From your phone?
2 - Your physical location (apparently you have an RFID implanted somewhere, and you passed by a reader they put up for this purpose)
3 - What ads are put on your phone, PDA or computer. (Apparently they know your IP address.)
4 - ALL your phone calls. To mine whether you called an advertiser.
5 - ALL your "financial transactions" (read credit card transactions). To mine...
Yikes! I don't want ANYONE to know all that about me... Do you?
This is the scariest thing I've read for awhile...
It is ~almost~ enough to make me get rid of my phone (or remove the GPS ability) and stop using my credit card.
JWedg
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I remember working at Qualcomm in the mid-90's and they were planning all this back then. In fact, the entire reason there is GPS in every new cell phone sold in the US is because a group of cell phone manufacturers and service providers lobby Congress to pass a law requiring this! While they sold people on the idea that GPS would help out with 911 calls, the real reason was because they already had detailed specs for geographically targeted advertising systems. In a related bill lobbied for and passed by Congress, cell phone service providers are allowed to share personal and financial information of their customers with third party affiliates. This opens the door to link geographically targeted advertising with the buying habits of the person who owns the phone.
Back then, the thought was giving customers totally free cell phone service if they agreed to use a phone with GPS enabled at all times and geographically/demographically linked advertising enabled.
When I saw Minority Report I remember thinking that one of the writers must have some knowledge of cell phone industry plans for the future.
But, as I feared back then, what seems to be happening is that service providers are expecting you to pay for the privilege of these services.
Wow! Does this mean that U.S. cell carriers might get around to ubiquitously adopting WiFi capable cell phones!? (That would allow the malls, public utilities and governments to subsidize data delivery?) Nah, then we wouldn't need Edge network data plans.(Of course AT&T already figured out how to overcome that, just require a data plan for activation of your iPhone.)
I wonder if the NSA could use this type of service to try out behavior modification ads on Extremist Sleeper Cell members... I can see it now. For each Cell member who turns himself or converts to Christianity, either the NSA agent or the clergy ad-specialist wins a free trip to Haiti's Hedonism III.
And how long before this system delivers "Issue Ads" to people on their way into the polling place... Ding! - "Remember to vote for Alby Zeinya for Congress; He'll protect you from the Godless Somnambulists!
-- Waiting for God, Yo! --
Calls of the future...
Operator: 911 what's your emergency
Caller: My car just flipped, I'm trapped, I need help I'm at...
Commercial interrupts call: Need a new car? Try Jordan Ford for all your new car needs.
Operator: Is anyone injured?
Caller: Yes, I think I broke my arm
Another interruption: Remember, Memorial Hospital is your friend, we care about you and
your family. Tell them to take you to Memorial.
Come on, it's the next logical step, they are going to start sending us text and picture ads, why not just voice over commercials durring a conversation...
See me already have this idea here. (along with other great comments..)
Cool! Amazing Toys.
fnord
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Anyone that uses the phrase "crazy loosy goosy" ever should be banned from Earth. Or at least banned from commenting on sane things to do.