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MoviePass Wants To Gather a Whole Lot of Data About Its Users (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader writes: MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe thinks his service's rapid growth will continue, projecting earlier this month that MoviePass will have 5 million subscribers by the end of 2018, and account for around 20% of all movie ticket purchases. But some of those future subscribers might be concerned about his company's tactics, which Lowe recently said includes tracking users' location before and after a trip to the movies. Lowe's comments, originally reported by Media Play News, were made at the Entertainment Finance Forum on March 2 in Hollywood. They came during a panel titled "Data is the New Oil: How Will MoviePass Monetize It?" Lowe's answer to that question, in part, was that "our bigger vision is to build a night at the movies," including by guiding users to a meal before or after seeing a film.
Lowe said that was possible because "we get an enormous amount of information. Since we mail you the card, we know your home address . . . we know the makeup of that household, the kids, the age groups, the income. It's all based on where you live. It's not that we ask that. You can extrapolate that. "Then," Lowe continued, "Because you are being tracked in your GPS by the phone . . . we watch how you drive from home to the movies. We watch where you go afterwards, and so we know the movies you watch. We know all about you. We don't sell that data. What we do is we use that data to market film."
Lowe said that was possible because "we get an enormous amount of information. Since we mail you the card, we know your home address . . . we know the makeup of that household, the kids, the age groups, the income. It's all based on where you live. It's not that we ask that. You can extrapolate that. "Then," Lowe continued, "Because you are being tracked in your GPS by the phone . . . we watch how you drive from home to the movies. We watch where you go afterwards, and so we know the movies you watch. We know all about you. We don't sell that data. What we do is we use that data to market film."
Get a card sent to a P.O. Box, pay using a prepaid card. Put the app on a cheap secondary phone which doesn't even need service. Use the theater's WiFi to confirm you're there.
That way, you can share an account (i.e. card + burner phone) among an entire family or group of neighbors and friends. Turn off the phone when not "in use" to turn off the tracking function.
Suck on that, Mitchie-boy.
An even better dirty secret is this: That kind of data isn't all that valuable.
Movie theaters already know that you go to dinner before a movie. That's why movie theaters are often parts of malls; they provide an audience of people who want to see a film and are willing to get something to eat as well. They don't need to pay MoviePass to get your GPS coordinates.
MoviePass isn't making money; they are losing money trying to make themselves well known and sell out before they run out of cash and investors.
Better yet, use it in a way that gets you the bennies but deprives the company of your data. i.e. turn the app off when not in use, or install it on an old "burner" phone.
Remember, the only people you're hurting are Wall Street banks and VCs who sink their money into services where you're the product. Yeah, if enough people do it, MoviePass will go bust, but might as well get a nice run with Wall Street money while it lasts.
run every app in its own container where I can specify what the external world looks like from within the container. So: GPS some location/track that I have chosen (regardless of the hardware GPS even being switched on), sound & camera virtual and maybe hearing/seeing some pre-recorded rubbish, contacts database - maybe unique to the container, ditto call log, ... Ie I want to control what the app perceives through the 'phones sensors.
No matter how you slice it... Fn Creepy. Any lady who would date this guy has gotta be out of her mind. If I were a serial killer I would be applying for a job at this company.
[($)]
The thing is, nobody cares, nobody sees any negative effects of these practices and as long as it stays like that, they will be happy to support cheaper goods in exchange for private data.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I do not own a smart phone. I do not even own a dumb phone. I can still order movie tickets from Fandango via my PC.
No, I am not a Luddite. My entire 40+ year career was in computer software. I just do not have the need to be in constant contact 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... -- 5 whole days ago
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
What Earthly good is money if you have no time to enjoy it? There's a fine line between industry and sado-masochism. 90hr/wk is the latter, plus after a certain time at the office, you stop being effective.
This isn't being industrious -- this is a martydom contest about who can stay in the office longest, even if they're playing on their phones 50% of the time.
"Success" is having time for family and leisure as well as making a difference. Working 90hr/wk for a bunch of people who'll likely kick you out the door at age 50 is just sad.
I don't shop at groceries that gate decent prices behind loyalty cards.
Any assurance that they're not going to sell the data is only good until the next merger.
Meanwhile, I continue to avoid the movie theatres apart from a few select movies, for which I reserve a seat in advance in a low occupancy theatre that is too expensive for the masses to bring their squalling children. Like once every year or two. If I just can't wait to get it at home where the experience is 1000% better.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Since so many of the sheeple seem intent on trading every scrap of personal information about themselves to marketers, it's obvious attempts to make aggressive data gathering illegal are going to fail for lack of support.
However, there is a kind of legislation might actually be popular enough to succeed. Enact data protection laws that include heavy penalties for failing to protect consumer data. When a corporation is as careless with consumer information as Wells Fargo was, for example, the company/bank/whatever should pay a hefty fine and be responsible for damages. In addition, the board of directors should actually face the strong probability that one or more of them will go to prison.
We have already seen massive data leaks that potentially have national security implications. If it's true, as we are repeatedly told, that severe penalties are a deterrent, then people responsible for such leaks should pay a heavy personal and financial price. They assemble detailed information about large segments of the population for their own ends. Then, because there are no real consequences for failing to protect these vast stores of information, they leave it vulnerable to any foreign spy agency with enough interest to go after it. Or they simply release it themselves due to carelessness, greed and stupidity.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
How's life in the hypocrite lane?