Telcos Waking Up To the Value of Your Location

holy_calamity writes "Cell phone networks represent probably the most effective data collectors of all time: almost everyone's movements and communications are logged in some way by these firms thanks to the ubiquity of cell phones. Now they're beginning to wake up to the value of that data, as researchers mine call records to study travel and social patterns at previously unimaginable scales. Not surprisingly, some are thinking about how to monetize that data, too."

Comments

"Value Added"

[betterunixthanunix]

My guess is that the companies will try to charge their customers more for "location based services," and also charging the companies that use location data to actually provide those "services."

Re:Value

[Em Emalb]

SMS charges are absolutely ludicrous.

It amazes me that telcos can get away with charging so much for such a minimally network-intensive service.

Maybe we should charge them?

[casings]

If government subsidized telcos want to use my data to make money, I think I will charge them for it. After all what travels on their tubes isn't their data, otherwise they couldn't be labeled common carriers.

Re:Maybe we should charge them?

[ScaredOfTheMan]

Tell that to the Credit Reporting Bureaus that use your data to make money. My money says Telco will simply see this as gravy, and not pass along any of the financial benefit to the customer.

prepaid is the way to go for privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

If you care at all about your privacy, buy prepaid with cash. They don't have any way to tie you to the specific phone that way.

Otherwise, if you give them all your data, don't be surprised when they use it for all kinds of things you didn't imagine.

Most people seem to take the philosophy of, "I'll just ask nicely and maybe they won't go all big brother on me". Me, I try to push towards the philosophy of, "Let's not give them this in the first place. Then there's no issue because it *cannot* be a problem".

Not just for this but other things too. I admit it requires a few sacrifices, but really much less than you might think. Mostly what it requires is *thinking*.

Re:prepaid is the way to go for privacy

[zuckie13]

Until they force you to show ID to buy the prepaid phones.

Re:prepaid is the way to go for privacy

[localman57]

They don't have any way to tie you to the specific phone that way.

Yeah. Because a phone that's been used to call your Mom, your job, your Wife, your girlfriend, your bank and your favorite dealer will be virtually impossible to tie to you.

FamilyNet customer support

[Dr_Barnowl]

"So, we noticed that you spent an hour at a known brothel today. The good news is we offer our special customers preferential rates for non-geographic billing!"

Re:Why stop at location?

[Phillibuster]

why turn off the microphone just because you aren't making a call? Just continuously record everything in the vicinity

They'd never do that, because then they'd have to upgrade their networks... ;)

Why can't they use this data fix their coverage?

[apenzott]

It seems odd that now that the carriers have GPS coordinates of where their subscribers are using their services, that they seem unwilling to use this data (GPS coordinates and dropped calls) to improve their coverage and services where the customer needs it.

Oh, that entails spending money rather than making money. (Fail.)