Slashdot Mirror
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 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...
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.'
The privacy implications are mind boggling
The privacy implications of a phone that reports back to ad agencies isn't nearly as mind boggling as the Fed's new law that says all US/international communications can be bugged with no search warrant needed. The American way of life is already long gone. The problem is that nobody seems to care.
I don't respond to AC's.
Fuck. You.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~