Facebook Will Track What Physical Stores You Go Into (popsci.com)

Facebook will soon roll out a feature that will allow advertisers to see which brick and mortar stores you've physically walked into. These details are collected from anyone who has the location services feature turned on, Facebook says. The will allow advertisers to see in real time which Facebook ads are turning into actual sales. Popular Science reports: Using the location services on your phone, Facebook will keep a tally of who goes to what stores, and show the anonymized numbers to advertisers, as evidence that buying ads on Facebook is getting people to visit brick-and-mortar businesses. It's a great thing for Facebook, which will now have excellent data to prove (or disprove) on a user-to-user basis what a store is getting for its advertising dollar. But it's a pretty frightening idea that a company will have information not unlike your credit card statement all from location services data.

Comments

Yep, you volunteered for this

[Anonymous Coward]

Turns out all you needed to do to get people to voluntarily wear a GPS tracker is tell them it makes talking to their friends easier.

Reasons

[theurge14]

Yet another reason to keep Location Services off other than it drains my phone battery.

Re:Reasons

[Lumpy]

turn off Wifi as well. It can see what wifi AP's are available and use that data

Re:Reasons

[bondsbw]

Also turn off camera access, it can use AI to cross-reference photos to recognize your location.

Re:Reasons

[Solandri]

If you're on Android Marshmallow, you can deny these permissions on a per-app basis. So give your GPS and fitness app permission to use your location, give your camera app access to the camera, but prohibit Facebook. If your phone hasn't yet gotten Marshmallow, this is probably the biggest reason you want to pester your carrier about hurrying up and releasing that update. It's been available to developers for over a year now, and unless you've got a very old handset it's inexcusable that a carrier hasn't rolled it out yet. (In an ideal world carriers wouldn't be allowed to sell phones, so we'd have competition to force phone makers to roll out these updates promptly. Most have within a month or two, it's the carriers who are dragging their feet - because they have no competition within their network they feel no urgency to roll out these things.)

Some apps crash if you prohibit certain permissions. But that's probably a good sign that you should uninstall that app (the developer isn't doing basic error handling). The only permission Marshmallow doesn't allow you to block is network access. But if you're rooted, it's trivial to install a firewall and block specific apps from using your data and/or wifi connection.

Re:Reasons

[Pharmboy]

or don't use the Facebook app. I don't, yet I check in with Facebook from time to time, then close out the browser in my phone. They are soon to stop allowing people to use their chat unless you install their app, and again, I won't install it. I don't want Facebook to run in the background, but I still want to use Wifi and even GPS. If they stop allowing you to use any Facebook without the app, then I will stop using it on my phone. It isn't like Facebook makes me money or enriches my life, it just lets me talk to family without having to actually talk to them.

Fuck you Facebook.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you Facebook.

No it wont

[TheCarp]

Because I don't install special snowflake apps on my phone, and VERY VERY few of the ones I do get approved to ask for location data, and I take away any permissions I don't think they need.

First thing I did with my new phone was disable permentantly the first app that asked for my location data. (some hidden NFL app)

There are limits to GPS

[TopShelf]

So what happens when you're in a multi-story building, like the Water Tower in Chicago? You may be in the Lego store, but 3 floors below is Victoria's Secret...

Re:There are limits to GPS

[geek]

Beacons

https://developer.apple.com/ib...

Re:There are limits to GPS

[HornWumpus]

GPS returns altitude.

No, they won't.

[pla]

I consider myself a borderline-tinfoil-hat privacy advocate, and I really see this as a non-issue.

If you voluntarily install a tracking application on your phone, and give it permission to access your GPS - That doesn't "violate" anything (except "common sense").

Yes, I would consider anyone allowing this a complete idiot; but in no way does this affect anyone that doesn't want it to track them.

Or make it critical for social networking

[rsilvergun]

Like it or not Facebook is how people connect now. There's a lot of introverts on this forum (myself included) who have used for that. But if you genuinely want to be around people Facebook is how you meet up. For example: all the table top gaming stores in my neighborhood use it to coordinate events, and all the dnd groups use it to find and connect players.

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[tripleevenfall]

Aside from a few Sheldon Coopers out there who would be shut-ins without social media, most people do not want to be tracked by GPS by a company which exists to sell information about them to advertisers.

This is it for me and the FB mobile app, I have just deleted it and will not be reinstalling it.

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[__aaclcg7560]

[...] most people do not want to be tracked by GPS by a company which exists to sell information about them to advertisers.

This begs the question... How many store-branded reward cards do you have in your wallet?

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[nucrash]

The concept of disabling location tracking or possibly just leaving your phone at home probably doesn't enter into the conversation, does it?

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[rock_climbing_guy]

Tell me about just how creepy Facebook is!

I recently had Facebook prompt me to add a business associate as a "Facebook Friend".

I discussed with him the matter of how Facebook could have known that we know each other. I never used Facebook to communicate with him in any way, nor did I view his profile, and he says that he never even viewed my profile. We can only guess that the Facebook app on his phone (which I steadfastly refuse to install on mine) scraped my phone number from his contacts list and then Facebook somehow matched it up with my name.

Sad to say, that's exactly what I would expect them to do.

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[ShanghaiBill]

most people do not want to be tracked by GPS by a company which exists to sell information about them to advertisers.

It depends on how you phrase the question. If you ask people "Do you want corporations to track your location?" most people will say "no". If you ask if people if they prefer ads and discounts to be for things they are actually interested in, they most people will say "yes".

It is better to ignore what people say they want, and instead look at their revealed preferences. Most people are willing to give up some degree of privacy for more connectedness and to save money. Personally, I don't care much if I am tracked, as long as I am informed and have the option to enable/disable at will. If I am going to see ads anyway, I prefer ads that match my interests (metal lathes rather than tampons, Rogaine rather than shampoo).

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[coinreturn]

The concept of disabling location tracking or possibly just leaving your phone at home probably doesn't enter into the conversation, does it?

Leaving phone at home? Doesn't that make a MOBILE phone just a regular phone?

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[__aaclcg7560]

I don't know who they are tracking when I use them though. It isn't me.

Since you're using the card, they're tracking you via your purchases and building a profile based on that. If you paid by debit or credit card, they might have that info associated with your profile and acquired your personal info through a third-party vendor. Like it or not, they're tracking you.

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[jenningsthecat]

Aside from a few Sheldon Coopers out there who would be shut-ins without social media, most people do not want to be tracked by GPS by a company which exists to sell information about them to advertisers.

This is it for me and the FB mobile app, I have just deleted it and will not be reinstalling it.

I only have WiFi or mobile data turned on when needed, usually for brief periods. After I'm finished, I turn them off until I need them again. I don't enable location services - never have. And I don't have a Facebook account - never have. I've rooted my phone, and the FB app, (along with all similar bloatware), was the first to go. And still, I'm sure I'm being tracked all over the place, if only to the degree of granularity allowed for by cell tower triangulation. If my provider can monetize that data, I'm certain they will. In short, these days there's only so much we can do, (short of dropping out of mainstream society altogether), to thwart advertisers and other collectors of personal data.

On a daily basis I think 'Fuck it, I'll cave in and let my privacy be whored out - I'll join Facebook, turn location services on, be one of the crowd, and try not to worry about it.'. But somehow, I can never quite manage to pull the trigger. Stubborn, I guess...

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're running Android v6 you can disable location services for just the Facebook app.

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[Nunya666]

Since you're using the card, they're tracking you via your purchases and building a profile based on that. If you paid by debit or credit card, they might have that info associated with your profile and acquired your personal info through a third-party vendor. Like it or not, they're tracking you.

I don't care because they save me money. A large store in the U.S. Midwest offers sales only to loyalty card holders. Sure, they have "regular" sale prices that apply to every customer. But they also have sales and specials that only apply to loyalty card holders. For example, save $10 if you spend $75 in the shoe department over a 4-week period. Or save $9 if you spend $400 over a 4-week period. And of course, regular sales of $.50 off this or $1 off that.

I don't care that they know how often I buy Brand X. Or that I prefer the store brand over Brand Y. Or that I have a cat, but not a dog. All I care about is saving 12-15% off my shopping bill for an entire year. That's 12-15% off groceries, clothing, health and beauty aids, automotive, gardening, etc.

Anyone who shops at this particular chain without using their loyalty/reward card is essentially throwing away money.

Oh, and I wouldn't dream of installing the FB app on my phone. Since I block the FB widget in my web browser, why would I allow FB on my phone?

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[tripleevenfall]

No, the point of loyalty cards is to get me to consolidate all my buying with that retailer instead of with a variety of retailers.

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[Maow]

We can only guess that the Facebook app on his phone (which I steadfastly refuse to install on mine) scraped my phone number from his contacts list and then Facebook somehow matched it up with my name.

That's exactly my understanding of how it works.

In which case, they also scraped your email address(es), home address, and who knows - SMS / email conversations? Call history?

If this friend posted any photos at a time that FB's algorithms can place the two of you together (i.e. GPS says "current location = "rock_climbing_guy's" house +/- 100m, then they have photos of you (and the inside of your house, etc.).

The possibilities are endless and the only consolation is that FB has so much of this data that it's possibly difficult for them to gather what they have on you specifically. However, FB has some really talented people, so they can probably analyze what they have quite well and nearly instantaneously - should their attention turn your way.

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[q4Fry]

This is true, to a degree. I do not think that it is completely valid, though. If you turn off WiFi as well as disabling location access, maybe you can avoid tracking. If you leave WiFi on, though, all the store needs to do is establish a WiFi access point with a unique SSID provided to (or by) Facebook. The app can sniff for connections and put you at the scene.

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[Pfhorrest]

I, in California, have a friend in Iceland who I knew through an obscure video game back in the mid-90s. I have no Facebook account. He apparently does though, because Facebook's constant "you should join Facebook because all these people you know are on it" somehow knows that I know this guy on the other side of the world.

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[sir1963nz]

The only way that will work is if you leave you phone at home. How soon do you think it will be before they have Wifi/Bluetooth/Cell sniffers on each door just tracking your MAC/IMEI numbers as you enter/leave ? They may even track which part of the store you go into and how long you spend in each area. Combine that with a camera system (security ones will work) + Facebook facial recognition and you may not even need a phone to be tracked.

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[viperidaenz]

When someone else posts a photo with you in it and they tell Facebook who it is, it goes against your profile that you never created.

Re:Or make it critical for social networking

[reboot246]

When I leave the house I have location service, bluetooth, and wifi turned off and when I am home, only wifi is turned on. Battery life is fantastic!

It must be profitable, but how?

[ErichTheRed]

I know no one ever went broke underestimating the idiocy of typical consumers, but do people _really_ buy every single thing someone sticks an ad in their face for? Is advertising really that powerful? Will knowing that X male, 35-44 year old, potentially Republican Facebook users entered the East Nowhereville Walmart make any difference to Walmart?

I admit I'm not a hipster embedded in the SV startup culture, but this new dotcom bubble based on advertising (again) is looking a lot like the old one from an outsider's perspective. The difference this time is that everyone has a tracking device in their pocket and voluntarily gives these marketing companies the Big Data they need. And oh yeah, real time machine learning cloud analytics for synergistic cross platform marketing opportunities.

I might be an outlier, but I find ads intrusive. I'm not pissed off enough to worry about blocking them, but I certainly remember which companies and products have shoved the most obnoxious ads in my face and avoid them when it makes sense. I just don't get _why_ advertising works; it's annoying! It doesn't make (smart) people more willing to buy your product!

If you have a good product, all you need to do is get it in the hands of a few smart people who will tell their friends about it. That's it; there's no mystery.

Re:It must be profitable, but how?

[LeadSongDog]

You're looking for "The Hidden Persuaders", or more recently "Under the Influence". They'll answer your questions.

Re:It must be profitable, but how?

[AthanasiusKircher]

I just don't get _why_ advertising works; it's annoying!

Yes, when it's too intrusive or "in your face." But marketing research for many decades has shown that "unconscious" (or "subconscious") processing for ads still has significant effects.

It's particularly prominent for simple things like brand familiarity. You may not be actively watching a TV commercial as you talk to a friend during the ad, but if your eye goes across the screen, you might see a product name. Or hear the product name mentioned repeatedly. Same thing with glancing through a newspaper or magazine -- you might not stop and read the ad, but repeated exposure to name brands will eventually register familiarity... even if you're not consciously thinking very much about it.

And thus when you go to the store, you start looking at the shelf for detergent and you see Tide. You've never really thought about laundry detergent consciously, but this name looks more familiar. So perhaps you're more likely to buy it.

It doesn't make (smart) people more willing to buy your product!

DING DING DING!!

Smart people are NOT the target audience for most ads. Smart people do weird stuff like research what laundry detergent might actually work better BEFORE they even go to the store. They might stop and read material and ingredients lists on the detergent before buying. They might even pull out their phone and verify that the claim to have "natural" ingredients even means anything, or if the detergent is just selling the same basic crap at twice the price for a "natural" label. (Pretty common practice these days.)

Smart people use and seek out information to influence a purchase. Advertising is all about finding ways to convince you to buy something on the basis of something other than rational thought and valid information. If it were about those things, the best ads would just consist of a list of specs for good products... and obviously they don't.

Re:ways around this

[HornWumpus]

Install cyanogen. Configure it to give bogus information to apps that want location information for no good reason (all but navi).

Optional: Have that location be some ridiculously overpriced shopping district. Rodeo drive, Monaco, Manhattan etc. Just to fuck with the companies trying to monetize the information.

Re:Not likely

[ledow]

I have to say:

Loyalty cards were invented because they allowed tracking of customer preferences etc.

Quite what data they get from them that actually results in greater sales I can't fathom (surely you can only give coupons for things, which results in less profit on things I probably don't want as I chose their competitor anyway) but in the era of having nothing like that, I'm sure it was a boost to discover that people who buy hot dog sausages also buy hot dog rolls.

But nowadays? And Facebook ads? You're suggesting that giving shops data on how many Facebook ads they bought resulted in someone walking into a store and buying products (which is purely correlative, not causative) is somehow profitable enough that it covers the bad press? I mean, honestly? How is that possible?

And surely it's "too late" if they've bought some Facebook ads to then tell the stores how many people went on to buy something. And couldn't that be done just as easily with a coupon, voucher, code etc. that's only in the Facebook advert? And then extrapolating from that to purely "we should buy more Facebook ads"?

I'm just not sure that I get this at all. How is it relevant to most stores, how many stores advertise on Facebook at all, how do you tie the correlation to a causation, what kind of rates are you expecting (aren't ad responses measured in PER THOUSAND and even then each is only a pittance of a measure?), and quite how does having all those statistics available magically make you more money than, say, putting up a sign or taking 5% off something?

It's Big Data applied to random human interactions again.

Re:Not likely

[swb]

At a certain point, it feels like the data is being obsessively collected to be used by marketing people with absolutely no math or statistics backgrounds to merely bolster whatever bullshit arguments, gut instincts or dart-throwing decisions they make.

Scientists schooled in the scientific method with math/stats backgrounds making a conscious effort to not fall into correlation/causation or selective bias errors often fail at producing good data.

A room full of marketing people, jockeying for corporate positions and status? That's a recipe for data errors.

It also makes you wonder how often the people responsible for the data alter it, simply to see what happens if they tweak the data so that suddenly it seems entirely sensible to sell polka-dot hats to 20-somethings or hoverboards to old people.

Re:Not likely

[DogDude]

You don't understand why local businesses would want to show ads to people who live near those businesses? Really?

Other options

[emil]

You may want some, or all, of these:

• -Xprivacy, a module in the Xposed framework, can be used to deny location access to any application, including Facebook. Your phone must be rooted to install Xposed modules.
• -Cyanogenmod PrivacyGuard has a similar feature. You must erase your OEM operating system to install Cyanogenmod.
• -3rd-party Facebook clients:
• • -Face Slim is very current, with patches in the last few days to deal with Facebook's messenger "night of the long knives."
  • -Tinfoil is the best-known skeleton client, but has been recently silent on the messenger issue. The app currently crashes if you try to use messenger functions.
  • -Several closed-source Facebook clients can be found in the Play store, who MIGHT respect your privacy.

Re:Not likely

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Scientists schooled in the scientific method with math/stats backgrounds making a conscious effort to not fall into correlation/causation or selective bias errors often fail at producing good data.

In discussion like this I am always reminded of a little tidbit I picked up in one of my AI courses in college:

People who buy diapers in a grocery store on Thursday nights also tend to buy beer at the same time

Then there is this little gem about Target from a while back.

Re:Better Idea

[NatasRevol]

4) Print out maps when driving places. Also, watch TV to see if there's a traffic jam

5) Don't ever get lost. Or have a flat. Or run out of gas. Also, know where EVERYthing is.

6) Make sure not to destroy your phone while doing surgery to remove said microphone (making it only a audio out device, WTF do you even call that) and camera.

7) Hope you have a pinhole camera to take pics