Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Amazon Granted a Patent That Prevents In-Store Shoppers From Online Price Checking (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the you-shall-not-pass dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Amazon's long been a go-to for people to online price compare while shopping at brick-and-mortars. Now, a new patent granted to the company could prevent people from doing just that inside Amazon's own stores. The patent, titled "Physical Store Online Shopping Control," details a mechanism where a retailer can intercept network requests like URLs and search terms that happen on its in-store Wi-Fi, then act upon them in various ways. The document details in great length how a retailer like Amazon would use this information to its benefit. If, for example, the retailer sees you're trying to access a competitor's website to price check an item, it could compare the requested content to what's offered in-store and then send price comparison information or a coupon to your browser instead. Or it could suggest a complementary item, or even block content outright. Amazon's patent also lets the retailer know your physical whereabouts, saying, "the location may be triangulated utilizing information received from a multitude of wireless access points." The retailer can then use this information to try and upsell you on items in your immediate area or direct a sales representative to your location.

12 of 465 comments (clear)

  1. Yet another reason to never use in-store wifi by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not only will they track you and spy on you. but now they'll also censor your browsing.

    At least they're not just silently modifying the traffic to mislead you...yet...

    Now what's that theory about all participants in capitalism requiring perfect information about the market?

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    1. Re:Yet another reason to never use in-store wifi by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Consumers are on the receiving end of capitalism. They're not capitalists. What more perfect information can you get than a capative audience on your in-store wifi network?

    2. Re:Yet another reason to never use in-store wifi by kilfarsnar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Perhaps that's what's needed for Joe Common to finally realize how ubiquitous tracking is and why he should care.

      Then finally maybe there'll be a push towards everything going HTTPS and websites and apps finally putting some effort to protect the privacy of their users' traffic.

      I have little hope that Joe Common will ever care about ubiquitous tracking. They may say they care, but they will not change their actions or habits. Most people just don't have the vision or understanding. However, I have noticed that more and more websites are going to HTTPS. It seems to have been prompted by Edward Snowden's revelations a few years ago; or at least seemed contemporaneous.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    3. Re:Yet another reason to never use in-store wifi by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It has nothing to do with being on the receiving end, as the theory (which doesn't even require capitalism as it comes from game theory and any planned economy that wants to even have a chance of working is going to strive for perfect information) applies to anyone participating in the game, which consumers are definitely doing.

      In the real world, perfect information is practically impossible, and even when it is potentially available, it is frequently too expensive to justify the cost of acquiring it. Capitalism as typically practiced is a decentralized economic approach, which tends to work well in practice because no one is a mind reader, so the individual players tend to make economic moves that are more locally informed on average than planned economies could ever hope to achieve.

    4. Re:Yet another reason to never use in-store wifi by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Perhaps, given that Amazon has like, two retail locations, the point of this is to prevent other sellers like, oh, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, etc, from being able to block retail customers from searching for Amazon pricing on items they find in-store?

      'cause it seems to me that if a seller doesn't really have a brick-and-mortar presence, that this patent doesn't help them actively.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  2. So the question is this: by mark_reh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are they patenting it so they can license it, or so they can prevent others from doing it by not licensing it?

    1. Re:So the question is this: by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The real question is how this is even worthy of a patent.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  3. Who uses random wifi? by Pedestrianwolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am the only one that doesn't connect to an access point that I'm not familiar with?

  4. Re:Nothing to see here by Dragonslicer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's called "wire tapping"

    This is a good point to raise. A patent gives you the "exclusive right to your invention", but the important word is "exclusive". In case people aren't aware, a patent does not give you the right to implement your patent, it only gives you the right to prevent others from implementing it (via monetary restitution or an injunction by a court). You can patent something that's illegal (e.g. a new method for manufacturing heroin), and you can sue anyone that infringes your patent, but you can still be arrested or sued for implementing it yourself.

    Note that I'm not arguing whether or not Amazon's system counts as wire tapping, I'm only saying that it's not the USPTO's job to decide if it counts as wire tapping.

  5. Maybe the purpose of the patent is to bury it by dcavanaugh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It seems that most of the online price checking takes place at OTHER stores, with customers checking the price of something on AMAZON. If Amazon thought to patent this method, maybe it's because they don't want competitors to block these online price checks.

  6. Re:can they do it with https? by funkman · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's not how TLS works. At most you expose the hostname you connect to. All path parameters in the GET request are encrypted. And it doesnt matter if GET/POST/PUT.

  7. Passive participle in headline by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    Amazon is not supposed to be able to grant patents. Only the USPTO does that in the USA.

    You'd have a point if the headline began "Amazon Grants a Patent". But the use of the form "Granted" is a clue that Amazon is not the agent. To fit a headline under a publication's size limits, headline writers often follow rules like the following:

    1. A headline is usually in the present tense: "USPTO Grants Patent to Amazon".
    2. When the agent is obvious, such as only USPTO that ever grants patents, the sentence is flipped to passive voice: "Amazon Is Granted a Patent".
    3. It's common to drop "is" and "are" from a passive main clause: "Amazon Granted a Patent".

    Tendency 1 lets readers tell the difference between a passive main clause and an active one because only the passive one will have a passive participle. Most English verbs have a passive participle spelled the same as the past tense, but very few verbs (such as "come" and "run") have a passive participle identical to the present tense. Thus in this context, "Amazon Granted a Patent" means "Amazon [was] granted a patent [by the USPTO]".