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Telcos Waking Up To the Value of Your Location

Posted by kdawson on from the cdrs-from-your-cars dept.

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."

1 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Why stop at location? by Fractal+Dice · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They can sell information on everyone you called, use speech recognition to monetize the content of your calls. And since you voluntarily brought a phone into your life, why turn off the microphone just because you aren't making a call? Just continuously record everything in the vicinity - there must be a wealth of data there that someone would pay for.

    If data-mining of everything that touches the service works for facebook, why not telcos?