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Google Is Testing a Program That Tracks Your Purchases In the Real World
cold fjord writes "Business Insider reports, Google is beta-testing a program that tracks users' purchasing habits by registering brick-and-mortar store visits via smartphones, according to a report from Digiday. Google can access user data via Android apps or their Apple iOS apps, like Google search, Gmail, Chrome, or Google Maps. If a customer is using these apps while he shops or has them still running in the background, Google's new program pinpoints the origin of the user data and determines if the customer is in a place of business."
Big Brother is here, and he's a Capitalist Tyrant.
Isn't it terribly inconvenient how market research data, which is so commercially useful that companies collect it out of self interest, technological transaction data, which are necessary to do things like route packets, packages, and phone calls, and the data that would be of interest to a surveillance state are so very similar?
That's really why capitalism has such a bright future as a surveillance dystopia. Anybody with enough cash can hire thugs and informants; but can your commie, or your fascist, operate a comprehensive network of informants at a profit, rather than as a massive drain on the consumer economy that might keep the mobs at bay? Anyone with enough thugs and informants can make tracking collars mandatory; but can they make wearers lovingly recharge them nightly, and pay for customized ringtones?
Could even Big Brother get Winston to rack up some credit card debt to finance a 50" HD telescreen, out of a desire to consume premium content in greater comfort and luxury than his lesser neighbors? Bah. Amateurs, the lot of them.
You may not care what you purchase at Wal-Mart, but there are a lot of people who might want that info:
1: The local DA. Here in the US with private prisons running the show, DAs -have- to keep the beds full. Judges have to convict or else they will face an anonymous donor spending big bucks on their rival candidate. Police have a quota of how many people that need to have cuffs slapped on and hauled in.
I remember a case a few years back where a local DA got ahold of E911 records from a phone company. There was a park that was open until dusk, but was still a popular hangout among teens after it closed. The DA got the records of whose phones were in the park after 9:00, and did a mass criminal trespass arrest using that as evidence.
2: Private businesses. A few weeks ago, an acquaintance mentioned something on a social networking site he did in the 1990s. A few days later, he served with a notice of criminal trespass that he was banned from a store chain for life for his actions. This was done far longer than any statute of limitations for his screw-ups.
3: The blacklist bureaus. Post that you don't want Mexican history as a requirement for graduating in US schools, you are then branded a racist for 7 years. Same if you click "like" on something asking, "why should I press 1 for English?" Find an interesting topic about firearms, and one gets flagged as a potential shooter.
4: Thieves. It is only a matter of time before extortion and blackmail is done with the info gleaned from insecure sites and the fact that people don't give a shit about privacy. There are a lot of cases where someone mentions they are on vacation, and their house gets burglarized.
5: Foreign agents. If you are starting a cool new business that might get the eye of someone overseas, you just might find your VC guys saying that they are not interested in funding because some guys over in Hong Kong have the exact same offering even down to the joke code names, and are making/selling it cheaper than it ever could be done in the US.
6: Health insurance. I was browsing a business that had a humidor, and a friend snapped a picture of me in it. A week later, my health insurance company demanded I have a physical, or pay smoker's rates, plus a fee for lying to them.
7: Car insurance. Right now, the insurance companies want a device that measures stuff off the OBD2 port. It wouldn't be surprising that they used GPS/E911 data next.
8: Red light traps. I've seen lights that went from green to red, no yellow whatsoever on lights with cameras. Of course, unless one drives with a dash cam, there is no proof otherwise. Imagine the shit the local Roscoe Coltraine will come up with when he has access to GPS and E911 records. Local governments will love it if they can find someone went 66 in a 65 on some rural road and fine them for it. Plus, it gives excuse for finding marijuana on a vehicle and seizing it (even if there was no marijuana present, the local officer will be more than happy to provide it.) This goes hand in hand with #1. More people enmeshed in the criminal system, the more money going to lobbyists, and the worse it gets.
When people don't give a shit about privacy, don't be surprised about the consequences. Raves getting surrounded by a SWAT team and people facing felony charges, having to pay health insurance premiums over keeping a roof over one's head, your kids going to jail for curfew violations because they stepped off school grounds during lunch, felony-hard gun charges pressed because a DA thinks you might have driven too near a school when on your way to the range and back.
People have quite forgotten the lesson that Eastern Europe had. It has been over 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell, and people forgot how brutal a police state can be. It can easily come back, and these days people talk about revolution.
Revolution is impossible these days (couple UAVs with VX canisters piloted by mercenary pilots will stop any organizard rebellion), so stop the loss of rights before they are gone.