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Walmart Wants To Deliver Groceries Straight To Your Fridge (consumerist.com)
New submitter Rick Schumann writes: Walmart has a new marketing idea: "Going to the store? No one has time for that anymore," Walmart says. They want to partner with a company called August Home, who makes smart locks, so a delivery service can literally deliver groceries right into your refrigerator -- while you watch remotely on your phone. Great, time-saving idea, or super-creepy invasion of your privacy? You decide. Here's how the company says it would work:
1. Place an order on Walmart.com for groceries or other goods.
2. A driver for Deliv -- a same-day delivery service -- retrieves items when the order is ready, and brings them to the customer's home.
3. If no one answers, the delivery person can use a one-time passcode that's been pre-authorized by the customer to open the home's smart lock.
4. The customer receives a smartphone notification when the delivery is occurring, and can choose to watch it all play out in real-time on home security cameras through a dedicated app.
5. Delivery person leaves packages in the foyer, then brings the groceries to the kitchen, unloads them into the fridge, and leaves.
6. Customer receives notification that the door has locked behind them.
1. Place an order on Walmart.com for groceries or other goods.
2. A driver for Deliv -- a same-day delivery service -- retrieves items when the order is ready, and brings them to the customer's home.
3. If no one answers, the delivery person can use a one-time passcode that's been pre-authorized by the customer to open the home's smart lock.
4. The customer receives a smartphone notification when the delivery is occurring, and can choose to watch it all play out in real-time on home security cameras through a dedicated app.
5. Delivery person leaves packages in the foyer, then brings the groceries to the kitchen, unloads them into the fridge, and leaves.
6. Customer receives notification that the door has locked behind them.
No way ever will I do this.
What is that last sentence referring to? Does Walmart have some sort of security history or hiring practices that you are alluding to?
Walmart is notorious for paying it's employees terrible wages and benefits. Am I to assume that if they cannot be bothered to pay people a basic living wage that they are going to devote much effort to vetting them and making sure that the are not criminals? Moreover, how much it security is a skinflint company like Walmart going to invest in to make sure that the one time pass codes they are using are properly secured aren't falling into the wrong hands?
If you were a professional criminal, and you learned that Walmart had or could create onetime keys for half the city, wouldn't you be very interested? This is a terrifying idea, made more so because of who wants to do it.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!