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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."
This is just more of the slope we are going down. I'm sure that soon, telcos will realize they have a nice stream of info they can mine/monetize by attaching voice recognition software to people chatting, and then sell that data, either "aggregate", or person by person and identifiable.
Europe actually has lawmakers who might pass privacy laws. Maybe the EU can start by attaching severe penalties for using location information for anything but critical legal info?
Did someone say cheaper phone calls??
Wait! Whats a sig?
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."
Palm trees and 8
Jack Dorsey (Twitter Founder) did this with bike couriers, ambulances, and fire trucks. Mologogo (http://www.mologogo.com/) allows you to do this somewhat as part of a social network, Google Latitude allows you to see who's close by. I wouldn't be surprised if we are already being tracked.
As for ways for telcos to monetize this, I would imagine this data would make a PI's job a lot easier--as well as an unwanted stalker--individuals' locations in aggregate would be useful for real-time traffic data, or even for commuting stats. It sort of reminds me of a game called Monopoly Tycoon and how I could see how shoppers in my city were moving, and place my stores to maximize foot traffic.
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.
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*.
I guess it's a good thing I don't have a cell phone. No cell phone, no tracking. No tracking, no data mining.
About the best the marketers know about me is from my grocery shopping card, though what they glean from my buying a 5 lb. tub of Crisco, two 48-count packs of condoms, three baby bottles and the 5 lb. jar of grape jelly every two weeks is up to them.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location-based_service#Locating_methods
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If you walk around then your mobile logs at least into one mobile cell. If there are three cells around you then you can do triangulation. There's an open source project that can make use of this data from within your mobile: http://opencellid.org/
"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!"
"This is anautomated message for Mr Smith. Hello Mr Smith, we've noticed that you've been spending your friday mornings at hotel 6 a lot, and while you commit adultery with Ms. Doolan who also spends a lot of time there with you, you may want to consider taking a short detour to Delco Brand Drugstore for some condoms to avoid your wednesday trips to the free VD clinic!"
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?
Beginning to wake up to the idea? I got out of the cellular biz back in '95, and "location based service" was being talked about then. It's hardly a new idea, and it's one the telcos have been drooling over for more than a decade. Maybe they're finally figuring out ways to make it pay off.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I'm almost every day at my cave programming and that stuff. In 2009 I decided to go to the Rally that took place in Cordoba, Argentina (I'm from the neighboring province Santa Fe) and after I went back I started to get spam SMS's that advertised Rally related stuff. I have Telecom Personal and of course, I can confirm they either sell or use (themselves) my location info to at least try to sell me stuff. I can only assume they actually use location data for that and other "darker" purposes.
TomTom has been using cell phone location data, provided by Vodafone, since 2006 for traffic (congestions and travel times) information. See it at work (for free) here: TomTom HD Traffic
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.
Why stop there? Most phones these days come with at least one camera, many with two. Activate both, and stream the data back to a data collection point. Do image search and color-gradient analysis, pick out those that indicate some hanky panky, hire some folks in the far east for a dollar a day to comb through the video data and pick out only those streams that show people in a comprimising position, and then monetize in one of the following ways:
1. Blackmail your victim^H^H^H^H^H customer (a monthly fee not to tell the missus/mister what you've been up to in your cubical at 10pm last night, or to not send your family intimate pics of your honeymoon, etc.)
2. For those who won't or can't pay, hire another set of people with video editing skills to weave together full length videos of people's intimiate moments, and sell online.
3. Charge a premium for videos of people who 'live near you'.
4. Profit!
Bonus points for those iPhone holding iSlaves ... they can provide the content, but their 'freedom from porn' ensures they can't watch it (at least not on their iShackles).
I mean, it's not as if we have any real rights anyway, once there's a bottom line to be made, and it isn't like this is any creepier than the 'dead peasants insurance' most of our employers have taken out on us already.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I am beginning to see value in turning my phone off and leaving it at home... maybe even turning off service.
Where are our consumer protection agencies when we need them? At every turn, the people we exchange money with are sharing our personal details for further profit. This should be illegal without compensation. If I am used in generating their content, and to be clear I *AM* being used, then I should get a cut of the profit at the very least and most certainly the ability to opt out with complete confirmation and the ability to sue if they violate that status.
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.)
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.