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The Next Frontier of Consumer Exploitation By Corporations
First time accepted submitter alisonuw writes "So what if Google knows where I'm planning my next vacation and suggests hotels for me? Sure, it's creepy, but is there really any harm in companies tracking my info to target ads to me? Professor Ryan Calo (UW law) is out with a new paper that demonstrates the real harm behind these practices, making consumers vulnerable to making decisions that go against their self-interest (ie: predatory lending, price inflation, etc). The Atlantic has an article today that outlines the new research."
The question is not does it, or does it not matter companies are tracking us, they ARE tracking us regardless
The real question is what are we, the consumers, going to do?
We can be passive - and let them (the corporations / governments ) manipulate our lives with all their suggestions/advises via their ad/marketing/propaganda campaign (as has been happening for the past few generations)
We can be on guard and do our best to make sure that our lives stays our lives, not the lives the governments / corporations want us to have
The society in the future will have a new gap, a gap in between people who live their lives as individuals, or, people who live their lives as sheeples
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
No, your definition is bogus.
Advertising is meant to inform you that Coke is available here. You were thirsty anyway or you wouldn't have noticed it.
Advertising a steaming fresh sack of shit won't get you customers who were really looking for new shoes.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
This goes way beyond mere advertising. It also involves the price you pay and which products are available in shops near you. Restaurants may increase the price of their meals if they know you are very hungry, it's unlikely that you will leave once you have been seated. Cigaret-vendors will lower their prices if they figure out you are trying to quit.
The old adagium "Knowledge is power" still holds.
If you have a phone, as you walk around a shopping center or store will are being tracked.
,the future of consumer exploitation is terrifying.
If you linger in the baby aisle, expect to get baby ads and coupons without asking for them. You might even find out your teenage daughter is pregnant from coupons you get.
Very intrusive: Get served ads to your phone and all devices based on store browsing and the kind of stores. You have no choice to opt out.
Medium intrusive: Get asked if you would like coupons for what they think you like. Ads on devices or apps that are ad supported are targeted.
Low level: You get coupons on your receipt based on your walking pattern and habits. (this already happens)
Future exploitation, the terrifying final form.
Location based A.I. scans your physical body for any and all brand name clothing. Tied into the parking lot cameras, it logs your car and plate number. Using sets of data (The estimated outfit cost, car value, car color psychological assessment, insurance carrier) it evaluates your income bracket and psychological profile.
A.I. scans all store records for purchases that match what you are wearing. If the purchases is detected to have not been made at the store, coupons and ads targeted at those articles are sent (You too can get Feragamo shoes here).
Each time you stop, the time and location and nearby goods are noted. Any regular walking patterns are logged. If you walk the same pattern every time, the lcd screens change to ads targeting you along your route.
As you approach merchandise displays, eye tracker record what items you look at and what in the adverts your eyes followed.
As follows: 15seconds female cleavage, 5seconds product, 1second dog.
Unregulated
How about NOT even showing a better-off individual cheaper alternatives on a flight search.
Coke is a fresh sack of shit, it's not water, juice or milk and provides no significant benefits at a remarkable markup. The fact that this was your example is not even ironic, it's simply sad.
They don't need protection from the world.
It would appear that it never occurred to you that these people FAR outweigh the "smart" people and therefore it actually is in YOUR own, best interests to protect and guide them.
I use multiple: AdBlock Plus and Ghostery in my browser, a hosts file and since I'm using Peerblock anyway to block the RIAA and cronies from my torrent client I added an ads blocklist there too.
Not because of ads, but because of the choices they offer you. False dilemmas are the staple of politics today, and people are easily pushed into those false "either or" decisions. "For us or against us!" (really? I neither care 'bout you nor your terrorists, leave me alone!). "Bail banks out or the economy crumbles!" (nope, bail out the people holding saving accounts and let the bank fall flat on its face, worked well for Iceland. Remember Iceland? The country that started it all? They're through with their recession, we barely started ours).
I'm pretty sure the average reader can come up with more examples. We are presented false choices, where one is so horrible that we grudgingly accept the not quite that horrible one as the "right" choice.
What we fail to do is think about other options. There are usually plenty of them. But they are not as favorable for those that present us the false dilemma.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I had to work with unemployed people quite a bit in my life. It's fascinating how they are being pressed into "jobs" for ... well, whatever the economy currently needs. No matter whether they can do it, whether they have any kind of affinity with it or whether they are absolutely unsuitable for it.
Over here, to keep your unemployment money, you have to jump through the hoops presented to you. So people do it. You get sent to various training courses that change in interesting ways over time. About 10 years ago, everyone was sent to a "web designer" and "network administration" class. Today, they prefer to send people to classes dealing with nursing and geriatric care. Again, whether the people have any kind of social skill, whether they can actually lift weights that easily pass the 100 lbs (or 200 lbs, depending on the person they have to lug around), whether they have any kind of affinity with it, doesn't matter.
People are exchangeable. And expendable.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If the choice of stupid people wouldn't affect the choices I have, I'd agree with you.
For reference, see politics. Or (*shudder*) TV.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, your definition is bogus.
No, your definition is bogus.
Advertising (really marketing) is at least two things:
1) To inform you of options to fill a need.
2) To convince you that you have a need.
(1) is useful in society, (2) is destructive to society
The problem is that practically all marketing tends to (2) over time. For example, sexy girls in advertisements. When they are in ads for stereotypically men's products (like beer) its obvious they are of type 2, but even when they are in ads for women's products like clothing they are still manipulative because they tell women if you just had this product you would be sexy too.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Oh come on, other people are not making decisions for you just because they show you an advertisement.
What do you think politics is?
Politicians can use this data to make sure their public image is exactly what the public will respond to. Politicians don't need actual policies any more, just this data.
Once they get voted in, you can bet they're making decisions for you.
No sig today...
Brick and mortar stores are legally barred from overtly providing different pricing for customers based on age or gender. They can't have a price tag on an item that reads:
Women Over 35 - $32.99
Women 35 And Under - $29.99
Men 38 And Over - $28.99
Men Under 38 - $26.99
However, common loyalty programs at stores profile customers by age, gender, purchasing habits, and all sorts of other demographic criteria and selectively issue coupons and promotions that have the same result (e.g., a drug store might print out a coupon for a male customer for lady's perfume to incentivize a purchase before Mother's Day, but wouldn't issue such a coupon to female customer who is inherently more likely to buy the product).
we're going to do absolutely nothing. We're too busy living our daily lives. You're guard will slip as daily life grinds you down, and you'll gradually join the sheeple. My history teacher said it best. "I was a radical in high school. Then I got a job, a car, house wife kids, the works. One I had something to lose I got real conservative real fast".
Me? I pick my poison. I'd rather have a strong central gov't I can at least try to influence and use. Maybe if we can get the schools to indoctrinate kids on the importance of democratic participation instead of the intrinsic beauty of capitalism....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I use multiple: AdBlock Plus and Ghostery in my browser, a hosts file
Try RequestPolicy it is better than a hosts file because it is on a per-website basis. You can let "slashdot.org" pull content from "fsdn.net" while blocking all other websites from pulling content from "fsdn.net"
And it is a whitelist system rather than a black-list like the hosts file, adblock and ghostery, so nobody sneaks through just because you haven't updated it. The downside is that if those approaches are like driving an automatic transmission, using RequestPolicy is like driving a stick-shift.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
not saying it _does_ work, but I think you'll find people are too busy living their day to day lives (work, family, kids, social networking) to monitor all the bad things companies do. There's a reason we started regulating companies. They did really bad things until we did.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Note well, some media outlets have praised the Obama campaign for using "Big Data" tools to target voters. Do you want or expect this chief executive to hypocritically discourage business from using the same techniques? http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/508836/how-obama-used-big-data-to-rally-voters-part-1/
That that is is that that that that is not is not.