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MoviePass CEO Proudly Says App Tracks Your Location Before, After Movies (techcrunch.com)
MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe told an audience at a Hollywood event last Friday that the app tracks moviegoers' locations before and after each show they watch. "We get an enormous amount of information," Lowe said. "We watch how you drive from home to the movies. We watch where you go afterwards." His talk at the Entertainment Finance Forum was entitled "Data is the New Oil: How will MoviePass Monetize It?" TechCrunch reports: It's no secret that MoviePass is planning on making hay out of the data collected through its service. But what I imagined, and what I think most people imagined, was that it would be interesting next-generation data about ticket sales, movie browsing, A/B testing on promotions in the app and so on. I didn't imagine that the app would be tracking your location before you even left your home, and then follow you while you drive back or head out for a drink afterwards. Did you? It sure isn't in the company's privacy policy, which in relation to location tracking discloses only a "single request" when selecting a theater, which will "only be used as a means to develop, improve, and personalize the service." Which part of development requires them to track you before and after you see the movie? A MoviePass representative said in a statement to TechCrunch: "We are exploring utilizing location-based marketing as a way to help enhance the overall experience by creating more opportunities for our subscribers to enjoy all the various elements of a good movie night. We will not be selling the data that we gather. Rather, we will use it to better inform how to market potential customer benefits including discounts on transportation, coupons for nearby restaurants, and other similar opportunities."
At my age, my location before and after a movie is the urinal in the men's room. No tracking needed. Those extra large Dr Pepper's go right through you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm in texas and their web site doesn't work in firefox or chrome.
On the page with city and state they say something about will be 'autofilled' and the red "next page" button is greyedout.
And their phone android app doesn't work either on my phone.
First, they want me to start at 2018 and go back a month at a time, to my birthdate in the 1960s (no drop down- no way to simply type in a date).
Second- the red button to advance to the next page is greyed out... again.
Ridiculous.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
So if I use an old cellphone for the app, using wifi to connect, they'll decide I am a very sedentary person who only goes to the movies, turns the phone off to not disturb others, and then turns it on at home and stays there until the next movie. Unless they require a device with active an active plan here's a good use fo tehat old cell phone rotting in a drawer.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
This kind of behaviour is exactly why I will not give up my old Nokia. I have a phone for calls, sms and the occasional snap, the camera isn't bad. I'm not paying for the privilege to carry a surveillance device so some entitled asshole can track me everywhere.
You try pulling that kind of shit in meatspace and I'll report you for stalking and you'll be in big trouble. Doing it surreptitiously via a "smartphone" isn't any more acceptable.
Say what now?
Not only does the ToS apparently lie about how frequently your location gets polled, but why would I expect tracking of my every movement because I subscribe to something? I don't expect my subscription to WoW to include tracking wherever I am at any given point in time.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Sooner or later, some developer/s will recognise the need for software to disguise, or even better, poison these data-collecting apps.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Make it interesting.
* Appear to be traveling 200 MPH after a Fast & Furious movie - only to come to an abrupt stop and cease communicating
* Teleport around the globe every time the transporter is used in a Star Trek movie.
* Spend 10 minutes at every massage parlor in town before AND after a movie.
* Make it appear that you drove several hundred miles and passed up many other theaters showing the same movie to get to the one where you watched it. Go home the same way.
* Make it appear you broke out of prison to see a movie and then returned back to your cell - bonus points if you follow sewer lines in and out of the prison.
Just whatever - use your imagination.
https://github.com/M66B/XPriva...
Why, good sir, personal data is the new oil! It's the new gold, crack cocaine and tulips ALL IN ONE, because as long as there are humans wandering about with unsecured phones, there'll be a constant supply! See here, this guy stopped at a red light on his way home! There has to be someone willing to pay for that data!
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
That is true for the iOS app, but totally fake option on Android
Also the ad blocker / cleaner pluggin works only on the main browser but does not work on browsers embedded on apps (like Facebook). This is true for iOS and Android.
"We are exploring utilizing location-based marketing as a way to help enhance the overall experience..."
"We are exploring exciting new ways to rape the wallets of people stupid enough to give a corporate predator unfettered access to their personal lives.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
But who the heck still actually goes to a movie theater to watch a move?
Shit like this is why the Pirate Bay was, is, and always will be the best provider of films. Had Pixar or Dreamworks or the like a donate button, I would give them a couple of hundred euro without hesitation, but shit like this keeps getting in the way.
I didn't imagine that the app would be tracking your location before you even left your home, and then follow you while you drive back or head out for a drink afterwards. Did you?
Does this person think we're all naive idiots? Very first thing I do when I get a new phone is disable *everything* that would let anyone get this type of information. Sure, it means Google Maps isn't as useful but who the fuck cares. I also make sure I kill any app after using it so it's not sitting in memory wasting my battery trying to do bullshit like this.
They give you a lot of money for said data. You basically get unlimited, free movie tickets.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Except they'll know you're coming and how you'll get there. Foiled again.
Not sure if the app would work under those conditions. Also more people have Androids, there the only choices for apps are "root access".
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
How about they charge any phone which makes a sound or whose screen is above XYZ brightness a fine and then distributes that fine to every other phone in that theater?
The could pay them in AssCoin, which can be redeemed for discounts on popcorn.
Even before GDPR, this looks like a clear breach of the Data Protection Directive. The difference is that the fines might not currently be calculated as percentages of global turnover.
The geeks were too slow, so we got our law makers on the case instead: https://www.eugdpr.org/
..."We are exploring utilizing location-based marketing as a way to help enhance the overall experience by creating more opportunities for our subscribers to enjoy all the various elements of a good movie night. We will not be selling the data that we gather. Rather, we will use it to better inform how to market potential customer benefits including discounts on transportation, coupons for nearby restaurants, and other similar opportunities."...
I don't want that benefit,the cost of it is too high. Can I turn it off?
We were going to get MoviePass but now, no thanks! A shifty company like this hiding such information from customers shows us what to expect from them in the future. This is lying through omission. I warned my family members who I had purchased movie pass for and advised that they ditch the service.
How anyone can believe any kind of explanation / excuse or anything they say going forward is beyond me. Are you sure they aren't tracking your movements at other times?
Also, I hate the BS they are pulling with movie theatre companies, blacking out some titles in order to squeeze money out of them. This just gets passed onto customers (non-movieopass customers)
When you run this app in iOS, does a dialog come up asking whether you want the app to track your location? Do you mindlessly click through it?
You can't poison data collection like this, unless you think enough people will use it. It's like lying on a survey. It's already accounted for in the margin of error. If you don't like it, just turn off the location permission or don't be a customer.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Whoa there. Subscribe is the least that you did. I looked up MoviePass and it's an "app" that you download, install and execute on your own computer; it's not just some remote service. It's not merely a website.
The normal expectations for commercial "apps" on phones and tablets these days are that they're malware. They request lots of permissions that always bewilder. The user knows it's dangerous and that the software's primary purpose is to exploit them.
If someone doesn't want to be tracked, they won't install someone else's code, no way. (If this were really just about buying a movie ticket, why would you run their code on your machine?) If they do that, then they're opting in.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I'm not even mad...
I'm not happy, but I'm not mad enough to stop using the app. I got a year's subscription as a Christmas present and have really been enjoying it. I've seen more than twice as many movies this year as I did in 2017. I'm curious how they plan to monetize this. They say they're not going to sell the data and the app currently doesn't include ads, but I assume this means ads are coming. I did RTFA, but it's light on details on MoviePass's intentions. Helping its users "create a whole movie night" sure sounds like ads, but they'd have to give me an incentive to change my behavior. Eating at home and going to the theater with a pre-paid ticket is a pretty economical night out right now. If I see no more movies this year, my brother paid about $11/ticket. If I keep up this pace, it works out to about $1.90.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
What they do is tell the restaurants that after seeing Black Panther you went and visited the local McDonalds. They then suggest to the restaurant that they might want to offer a coupon to their restaurant to keep people from going to McDonalds after the movie. Of course they are selling the data. So is everyone else. The fact that you are still using the app after knowing this, just shows how hopelessly stupid people are. They didn't even disclose it in the privacy policy. But you still aren't mad, so I guess why should they bother?
When the moron published that fact and millions of users switched off location tracking for the app.
XPrivacy user here...and by 'user', I mean 'multi-time donor' and 'will not buy a phone unless I know it can run Xprivacy'.
Xprivacy is excellent, but users must be aware of what they're getting into. If you use it just to deny location data from downloaded apps, you're probably fine. If you decide to set it so apps are unconditionally denied calendar and contact data, again, you're probably fine. However, Xprivacy can get you into trouble. It's the first thing I install, primarily because I use it to deny system apps access to various forms of data as well. I also have it set to prompt for other sorts of data, especially internet - Swype doesn't get internet access at all, for example. If you set it to prompt you, it will give you a number of UAC-style prompts when you first start the app. If you apply Xprivacy to system apps, you *will* spend ten minutes after your next reboot allowing and denying permissions to things, and doing so without being careful can get you stuck in a boot loop...ask me how I know this.
It takes time and dedication to make Xprivacy stabilize, but it's also pretty impressive how well it also acts as a de facto alert system. It's amazing how much Facebook Messenger hates it, especially when I deny it access to my contacts...which is why I use a combination of the mobile website and Frost instead. Similarly, it's almost scary going through the log of denied things, to see exactly how many times my location was requested from things which clearly didn't need it.
All in all, Xprivacy is why I'm still on Android - it's the only mobile OS with a tool like it. It does, however, require dedication and a willingness to put up with a less-smooth phone experience, but that's the cost of liberty.
Well, they're not selling the data in this suggestion. They can tell restaurants that people go to restaurants after movies, as a general trend, and that they should try to attract such customers with coupons in the app. They do the analytics and reach a conclusion, and can show impact without demographics: your area has at X times Y thousands of customers potentially coming to your restaurant.
When they get to selling demographics data, they're selling data. Everything beyond that also counts, obviously. "Restaurants in your town are highly-popular at these times, on the order of 80,000 customers per hour in this 5-mile radius, due to peak floods of exiting moviegoers" is just a conclusion.
I don't have a problem with them keeping this data to themselves; I have a problem with them not telling anyone they were gathering it. If they wanted to distribute the data, that would raise some serious issues: we don't have protections for consumers in this area, so you can easily click through a blind contract and sign your rights away.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
It's everything you wanted.
Tells you (or can) every time a program accesses a resource, and gives you the option of allowing it, or feeding it fake data.
Want every app to see an empty address book, no problem.
GPS at N 0.0, W 0.0? Easy!
Feed a randomized Google advertising id, IMEI, serial number, etc every time you run an app? That's one of the defaults:)
You can start our giving the app no permissions, and it will pop up a screen asking you to allow or deny everything it does.
It's fun to see how often apps try and pull shit, and stop it dead in it's tracks.
Also available for Android 6+
https://github.com/M66B/XPriva...
Cheers!
Uh, what makes you think they are not selling the data? Because the CEO said so? They could be selling the raw data, aggregated data, anonymized data, analytics, or any combination. How would you know? You guys are truly naive. No wonder we are in the situation we are now.
I didn't imagine that the app would be tracking your location before you even left your home, and then follow you while you drive back or head out for a drink afterwards. Did you?
Dude! Really? You first wrote for an outfit called 'TechCrunch' eleven years ago, yet this app's behaviour surprises you? Just how much time do you spend with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears singing 'la-la-la'?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
< Location Services MoviePass
-- -- -- --
Allow location access:
Never
While using the App [x]
Always
Fixed that for you...
And they know they don't have the product to draw new customers. Hell, they don;t have the product to draw old customers. Or dedicated, repeat customers.
So they are moving to reserve seating, plush, to simplify and enhance the experience. recliners actually help shield the light from the stupid iPhone X in front of me, so it's a deal, I don't have to waste 45 minutes to get the seat I actually want, and if I go solo I can go get my popcorn just before trailers and not lose my seat.
They are also going to change the mix of movies, slowly, but for a while inevitably. More family/values movies will come out, short runs with relatively low budgets, just as the 'swimming pool' and blog/guts movies will be intended for short run, lower budgets. Tech is helping as more production goes all digital, but cheaper movies can move through faster, and more product is always good for the studios. the exhibitors just want fresh to keep the seats
filled.
But this can still fail. Watch for more talent to go do non-movie 'projects', try their hand ad producing what THEY think is what we want (as in what THEY want), and ultimately see the streamers keep generating good original content to keep us out of the theaters.
Change. It is good.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
You guys are truly naive. No wonder we are in the situation we are now.
If you're that distressed by MoviePass knowing your habits around movie-going, maybe MoviePass isn't for you. I'm willing to disclose that I went to the movie from work and then went home in exchange for a $2 ticket. For you, apparently protecting that information is more important than cheap movies. That's fine. Why does it distress you that others of us are willing to make that trade?
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Because you are too stupid to realize that Google, Apple, Microsoft, insert random company here, is doing it too. But you don't care, because you are a good little consumer. Since people like you won't get mad, nothing will change. Stupidity at a massive level affects the rest of us.
$10/month plus your location, or $10/movie. Your choice.
Have you read my blog lately?
You defined the terms of the behavior. That behavior isn't selling data.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
...you are too stupid to realize that Google, Apple, Microsoft, insert random company here, is doing it too. But you don't care...
Not "don't care" entirely, but willing to make the trade. I'm a FB user too. Having a handy platform for discussions with family and friends is valuable enough to me to volunteer some information. (FB is going to track you whether you're a user or not - I'm just making it one step simpler in exchange for utility.)
You seem very distressed by decisions that don't affect you. If somebody says, "I'll give you a cookie, but only if you tell me your favorite lunch spot," I may or may not go for the cookie. He could do ANYTHING with that piece of information. He could tell a marketer where I go in exchange for $$; he could target coupons trying to get me to combine my favorite meal with my movie-of-the-day; he could go there himself and make the wait 1 person longer. I may or may not care. The point of this is that I'm deciding what to do with my information. I'm not distributing info on you nor am I forcing you to disclose anything you don't want to.
Stupidity at a massive level affects the rest of us.
If by "stupidity" you mean "not treating personal info as holy" and by "affects us" you mean "doesn't affect us".
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Would it be too much to ask from a summary, that it would explain what is this application supposed to do besides collecting data?
You really would benefit from crawling out from under your rock every once in a while.
On the iPhone each app asks you if you want to enable Location Services (i.e., tracking)....I **ALWAYS** say no.
another innovative idea for a business, that's why he's paid the big bucks. to come up with ideas like this, no-one had ever thought of invasively tracking private lives before. Hooray for creative management.
Nullius in verba
XPrivacy has not been updated in years, and the Git repo is archived by the owner. I wish there were a fork of this that was actively maintained. It used to be a must have because it would allow apps that had to slurp up info all the info they could ever want... fresh from /dev/urandom or /dev/zero.
You click "No" and then the features don't work :)
With most things, caveat emptor. If a fleshlight app requires every permission available including ACCESS_SUPERUSER, which almost apps do, people need to not install it, or find a garbage device to install it and remove it, just to write a one star review.
This is how many dev houses make their money. It isn't the game itself, it is the real time geo-location figures that can be handed over to anyone who wants them that brings in the dosh.
I wish XPrivacy were still around. Those types of apps that want everything can get it... nothing beats fresh numbers straight from my device's /dev/urandom.
Why do companies like MoviePass, Google, Facebook make a big deal out of "never selling your data". Of course they're not going to sell it. They're going to rent out the ability to use it, it's far more profitable.
Frankly, I'm not sure who I'd be worried about them selling the data to. They're already the worst offenders of my privacy.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
You'll be delighted to know that in the years since xprivacy came out, iOS now lets you set a "only use location services while using the app" for each app. Applications have to be able to function with this restriction: https://www.macrumors.com/2017...
Moviepass can try to track my location before and after I'm using the app all it wants to -- it won't work. I don't care if they track it _while_ I'm using the app, of course, since that's how it works.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
I'd love to spoof my data and seed more bad data. How do I do that?
The app only needs one location fix to work (your phone needs to be near the theater before you go into the movie). Just disable the app for the other 99.9% of your day.
Better yet, put it on an older second phone. Moviepass's security model to prevent sharing of the service is that the phone has to be near the theater for the Moviepass card to work. If you're not going to a movie yourself that night, lend the phone to your friends and neighbors along with the card for a buck or two.
Make sure the world gets its money's worth from your subscription.
XPrivacy has not been updated in years, and the Git repo is archived by the owner. I wish there were a fork of this that was actively maintained. It used to be a must have because it would allow apps that had to slurp up info all the info they could ever want... fresh from /dev/urandom or /dev/zero.
Agreed, but my experience thus far has been that Xprivacy is "good enough"; vi isn't exactly receiving weekly updates, either.
As far an an actively maintained option, Protect My Privacy is a good option, but I'm not really a fan because of its "hieroglyphics interface" - unlabeled icons and unclear statuses, rather than the words "allow" and "deny", etc. I thought apps were denied access to things, but then weren't because I set them wrong and wasn't clear on it. Xprivacy might be unmaintained, but the UI is far more functional.
You'll be delighted to know that in the years since xprivacy came out, iOS now lets you set a "only use location services while using the app" for each app. Applications have to be able to function with this restriction.
That does a solid job in this one particular instance, I agree. Once Xprivacy stops being viable on Android, I may be stuck going to iOS explicitly for this reason; Android allows apps to refuse to run if the app is told it doesn't have location or contact data or whatever.
The thing Xprivacy does better than iOS is give that sort of control to system apps. Additionally, Xprivacy allows me to deny network/internet access to apps, even on a per-domain basis (I can allow appdomain.com traffic, but deny graph.facebook.com, for example). iOS does not provide this function; everyone can talk to anyone. Finally, Xprivacy allows users to intentionally falsify location data to particular apps. I can use Google Maps the way its intended, but simultaneously tell Moviepass that I'm at the movie theater...and remain there for eleven days straight before returning to the north pole instantly...that sort of thing.
Why fake it?
Figuring out how to do some of them could be a damn fun hobby... Model rocket launched horizontally, then have a parachute slow it down?
Honestly, though, Pokemon Go probably has that angle covered far better than MoviePass ever could.
Everybody knows about Pokemon Go. I've never heard of MoviePass.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Thanks. I would say that I trust XPrivacy more, because it allows better faking of things, even contacts and music listings. If the XPosed framework is still being kept up to date, that is definitely a plus as well.
Not "don't care" entirely, but willing to make the trade. I'm a FB user too
Good for you, and meaningless. Your anecdotal story is as useful as his.
You seem very distressed by decisions that don't affect you.
And you seem distressed by other people's opinions.
You also seem pretty ignorant about how society works.
Someone makes something new, people use or dont use, like or dont like. Over time, society decides if it is good or not, and where to put the levels of "use".
Just because we haven't made a law for it yet, doesn't mean that because you agree with it, its an OK practice to do.
That is an ignorant argument, and frankly, a giant straw man built on your opinion, for which you tried to lambast the other guy over.
Let's face it: people tend to sneak in snacks from other places, as the don't want to pay the exorbitant prices of concessions.
If they track you from home, they'll easily be able to see you stop at, say, the 7-11, on the way to your movie.
You also can't tell me (with any conviction) that they can't tell if you bought concessions at the theater or not.
They're going to monetize it, all right... and find out where they're loosing money hand over fist.
Of course, they'll sell ads and give out coupons for different restaurants, so they can get that money out of someone, one way or another.
Just because we haven't made a law for it yet, doesn't mean that because you agree with it, its an OK practice to do.
If there's no law against it and "OK" means "legal", then it means exactly that. If "OK" means "Joviex-approved", we'll have to ask you.
Also, "lambasted"? I thought I was pretty civil. The other guy resorted to name-calling a couple of times, but that's what you do when you have no valid argument.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
If there's no law against it and "OK" means "legal", then it means exactly that
No, it doesnt.
Yeah, it really does. Just about anything that doesn't have a law prohibiting it is legal. If "OK"=="legal", then anything not prohibited by law is "OK". I think you're getting this definition of "OK" confused with "Joviex-approved".
Keep being an obtuse dick though...moron, obtuse and a dipstick...snowflake.
Thank you for demonstrating my assertion that people resort to name-calling when they have no valid argument.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Rather than ditching Android you could always just use one of the many firewall options. AFWall+, for example, is open source and lets me deny network access on a per-application basis. It also lets me allow access only through a VPN, which accomplishes part of what you're talking about. It doesn't allow spoofing your location through location services, only through IP geolocation via VPN, but... you can always just turn off location services and use a more trusted program for maps if you need it. (Admittedly, I never use maps so this is something that I don't care about.)
If "OK"=="legal",
That is where you went wrong.
(if (false) then false) == true
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
AAAaand what is the problem, exactly?
Who has it? What is it?
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Rather than ditching Android you could always just use one of the many firewall options. AFWall+, for example, is open source and lets me deny network access on a per-application basis. It also lets me allow access only through a VPN, which accomplishes part of what you're talking about. It doesn't allow spoofing your location through location services, only through IP geolocation via VPN, but... you can always just turn off location services and use a more trusted program for maps if you need it. (Admittedly, I never use maps so this is something that I don't care about.)
The issue isn't the incompatibility of Xprivacy in a direct sense, but rather the framework behind it. Rooting is becoming progressively more difficult, and a firewall that can affect system apps is going to require root. Even when root is possible, Xposed is getting less and less universal. A firewall isn't really enough because there are apps like Whatsapp that I want to have access to the internet, but not to my location or contacts. The same goes for the web browser and Instagram, among others.