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Startup Wants To Peek Through Your Home's Wired Cameras
alphadogg writes "The little cameras in your home are multiplying. There are the ones you bought, perhaps your SLR or digital camera, but also those that just kind of show up in your current phone, your old phone, your laptop, your game console, and soon your TV and set-top box. Varun Arora, founder of startup GotoCamera in Singapore, wants you to turn them all on and let his company's algorithms analyze what they show, then sell the results as marketing data, in a sort of visual version of what Google and other firms do with search results and free email services."
And ponies, too. Good luck with that...
Free Martian Whores!
I'd trade pictures of myself in my underwear for a "free" console. For an added fee, I'll even put clothes on.
Let a company spy on me constantly so it can make a profit by selling information about me? That sounds like a great deal for me. Where do I sign up?
Ponies and wireless cams?
You pervert.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
So, if I got this then I could guarantee that all of my spam would be about weight loss, masturbation aids, and (naughty) maid services? I don't see the difference from my current crop of spam.
My botnet already does this. Except I don't sell marketing data to advertisers. Visit RealAmatuerTube.ru. /TongueInCheek
Silence is a state of mime.
let's call it a Judas goat
If they gave every user a goat, then they'd certainly come up with some footage to resell.
After a week of analytics they shifted their business model slightly. "We are now offering users cash money to keep their cameras turned off, in the name of basic decency, animal rights, and several reports recently published by the FDA. When we say our users are sick we being literal in the most precise and correct sense of the word."
Yessir. One free glass house coming up!
Yeah. What's in it for me, Mr. Arora? And don't say "Access to ads for products you actually want!" because I'm a grown-up and know how to find things I want*. Besides, I doubt your "targeted ads" are any better than clicking I'm Feeling Lucky and dumping my CC# into the first 16 digit field I find.
I could be persuaded to let you watch me pick my nose at $1000 per frame, though. Otherwise, you and your startup can feck right off, sir.
*Who are we trying to kid, anyway? As a married father of two teenage daughters, I already KNOW what ads would best target ME: late-night Tampax/Midol shops, Rue 21 and Banana Republic clothing stores, and any vendor at the mall selling shit that confuses me. You should pay my kids as if they were on your marketing staff; they already did your research for you, buddy.
If only it worked this way:
Dear Sir,
I would like to sign up for your offer of (robotic voice) FREE GOAT. I have been made to understand that FREE GOAT is both adorable and delicious..
Please ship FREE GOAT overnight directly to my doorstep at your earliest convenience, for I have become hungry while typing this sign-up request.
Thank you,
Guy willing to let a FREE GOAT vendor know he likes FREE GOAT for a FREE GOAT.