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Lawyers Are Sending Mobile Ads To Patients Sitting In Emergency Rooms
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Patients sitting in emergency rooms, at chiropractors' offices and at pain clinics in the Philadelphia area may start noticing on their phones the kind of messages typically seen along highway billboards and public transit: personal injury law firms looking for business by casting mobile online ads at patients. The potentially creepy part? They're only getting fed the ad because somebody knows they are in an emergency room. The technology behind the ads, known as geofencing, or placing a digital perimeter around a specific location, has been deployed by retailers for years to offer coupons and special offers to customers as they shop. Bringing it into health care spaces, however, is raising alarm among privacy experts.
Law firms and marketing companies from Tennessee to California are also testing out the technology in hospital settings. "Is everybody in an emergency room going to need an attorney? Absolutely not," Kakis says. "But people that are going to need a personal injury attorney are more than likely at some point going to end up in an emergency room." The advertisers identify someone's location by grabbing what is known as "phone ID" from Wi-Fi, cell data or an app using GPS. Once someone crosses the digital fence, Kakis says, the ads can show up for more than a month -- and on multiple devices.
Law firms and marketing companies from Tennessee to California are also testing out the technology in hospital settings. "Is everybody in an emergency room going to need an attorney? Absolutely not," Kakis says. "But people that are going to need a personal injury attorney are more than likely at some point going to end up in an emergency room." The advertisers identify someone's location by grabbing what is known as "phone ID" from Wi-Fi, cell data or an app using GPS. Once someone crosses the digital fence, Kakis says, the ads can show up for more than a month -- and on multiple devices.
Firefox, even with adblock? Will ads be displayed in apps that generally don't display them, like, say, FBreader, the freeware epub reader? As long as they don't resort to sending unwanted text messages, I don't particularly give a damn. APPS!
They strive to hit new lows and this time they've nearly bottomed out. Some of them truly are ambulance chasers and now they let the ads chase the ambulances for them. Scum of the Earth, crud at the bottom of the barrel, less than human.
I suppose since this has graduated from a handy table saw attachment to the latest privacy breach in the hallowed name of the advertising dollar, I should express my indignation... really? the Hospital? you greedy Cretins.
What the next sacred domino?
Will I ultimately be getting offers to invest in cryptocurrency, coupons for dating sites, and amazing free trial programs for Pornhub when I post on /.?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Something must be running in order to display them.
Also, what is "phone ID"?
These two things need explaining.
Barratry brought to a whole new level.
This has been possible since the first apps were available on smartphones so did the author think he discovered something new?
and they'll stop. They're expensive ads.
I wonder how long until we start seeing more devices or service providers start to implement more defensive mechanisms against this. There's no reason my phone can't misreport its location to the services that ask for it or I can't get an ISP that will anonymize or obfuscate my traffic. I don't think it needs to be something that's always on, just on enough to discourage and disincentivize this kind of behavior.
Unfortunately I don't see it becoming widespread since most people don't value their privacy.
There are signs all over my local ER telling you to turn off your phone so good luck with that.
What a fucking term. I hate this world so much...
Seems like a great way to pre filter any Lawyer that I won't do business with. Law offices thast would do that should be defending Trump.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Clear violation of solicitation rules in most States and likely to get them disbarred.
I guess the ambulance chasers have to keep up with the times as well.
Phone transmits location data to ad server, ad server matches location to targeted areas and returns location specific ad.
This can be done in any ad supported application.
Yes, but presumably this is in cooperation with hospitals (or I guess more likely retailers in hospitals? retailers beside hospitals?) because you need some kind of control, either directly or by some kind of business arrangement, of the access points that are designated as being part of the fence.
"Old man yells at systemd"
In other words, this is an example of how a for profit business model for a hospital is naturally leads to the kind of behavior you have to spend more money (as a tax payer) to legislate away.
"Old man yells at systemd"
From the article:
The data comes from applications that smartphone users have given permission to capture location.
The hospitals can't cooperate, because that would certainly violate HIPAA. Basically install an app that request location permission (and just happen to share it with the ad network), and they'll get your whereabouts 24/7 whether the app is open or not, and they can match that against the geofence coordinates. Any app that uses the same ad network could potentially display the ad.
Something tells me this could run afoul of ambulance chasing/barratry laws, especially given the direct targeting.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I support phones at work and the only places I've encountered with any protocol filtering as hospitals. At that, the only thing that doesn't seem to work is RDP. ActiveSync, http, https, etc.,... all work via the hospital's WiFi and even without that, there is still the cell connection the hospital doesn't control. I highly doubt advertisers are making deals with hospitals - they don't have to.
I doubt hospitals cooperate but then again, their cooperation isn't required to locate a phone. The cell signal as you walk in is enough to tell a phone is at a hospital and there is nothing a hospital can do about it. Also, the hospital isn't giving the location data, the phone's owner is giving the location data. That isn't a HIPAA violation. There are many reasons to be at a hospital that have nothing to do with seeking medical attention - visiting someone, you work there as an employee or due to some other form of employment (police, fire). There are many employees at hospitals that don't deal with patient data as well - gift shop, cafeteria, janitorial, security, facilities, laundry.
It really needs to stop with this drowning everyone in advertisement. It's a par excellence example for the tragedy of the commons.
Advertisement needs to be opt-in only. We have the technology. I can tell my phone and my computer what kind of things I'm interested in and it will show me only those things. And sometimes I'm not interested in anything. Most of the time, actually.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Lawyers still leading the way to the bottom in humanity race to profit.
I'll gladly give them 30% of that.
Detect the ESNs of these scum and send them targeted text message advertisements for these new apps:
Radical New Treatment for Venereal Disease!
Keep Your Wife From Discovering Your Girl Friends!
Steal Even More From The IRS This Year And Not Get Caught!
How to Hide Your Klan Membership In Plain Sight!
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
They strive to hit new lows and this time they've nearly bottomed out. Some of them truly are ambulance chasers and now they let the ads chase the ambulances for them. Scum of the Earth, crud at the bottom of the barrel, less than human.
Um, I’m pretty sure they could get a whole lot worse. Are they deliberately causing car crashes, sabotaging consumer safety products, or hiring thugs to beat random (rich-seeming) strangers to drum up business yet? Working clandestinely with prosecutors and police to entrap potential clients so they’ll need lawyers? Conspiring to inflate prices or rig cases, taking dives, or betting on cases, especially ones they themselves are involved with? (“I’ll take The People of the State of Missouri versus Rodriguez to acquit in the fourth day of deliberations... it pays 17 to 1, right?”)
This is just advertising. You might as well whine about product placement in television and motion pictures, or say it’s creepy that they have ads for alarm systems and adult diapers on cable news channels, and ads for beer, or cars, or trucks during big football games, rather than the other way around.
As for how they “know,” I don’t think they do. Either the cellphone maker, app author, or cell carrier uses a technique like cellphone triangulation or something to figure you’re in a hospital. Now the hospital has no way of stopping this short of turning hospital buildings into giant faraday cages, illegally broadcasting their own radio signal to interfere with those of cell towers, build their OWN towers (which costs money and gives them no benefit unless maybe THEY inject ads,) and hide users’ locations that way, but they have no incentive to do so. Probably when whoever it is serving the ads detects (either via WiFi or cell triangulation, or GPS or location sharing,) you’re in a hospital, they serve ads from whoever it is who asked them to serve their ads to anyone in that location.
I don’t see what the problem is. Unbeknownst, seemingly, to many whining about their precious privacy, a mobile phone is screaming its ID number, electronically, in radio frequency energy, every second or so, and it must do so for the system to work! To want to take advantage of that convenience, and all the powers conferred upon you by what would have seemed like sorcery only a century ago, and gripe about the unavoidable cost, is hypocrisy. To try to make it off-limits to attempt to advertise ANY services only reduces streams of revenue that help defray the end-costs of your handset and the service without which your fancy little phone is basically a combination MP3 player and compact camera. Without that revenue stream, it would cost even more.
It’s just like free websites and services. Advertising pays for it. Don’t like ads? Don’t use the service. Don’t want people knowing where your phone is? Tell it to stop screaming it’s ID number by shutting off all its transmitters. This can usually be done using something called “airplane mode”. Then it won’t broadcast its radio signal, and no one will know where you are to serve you ads. Have a nice day.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Oh, I forgot... it could be worse, they could track phones that spend most evening in the same house as another phone that has visited a site like Ashley Madison and serve ads for private eyes and divorce lawyers, or they could geofence bars or pubs or liquor stores and if you visit them too often you start getting ads for rehab, or if a phone that spends most nights, again, with another and one phone is spotted spending a lot of time at a place that sells guns it serves the other with ads for crisis centers, battered spouses shelters, etc... no, the thing with ads for lawyers is NOT as creepy as it can get, either.
How about geofencing places where political rallies are held, and advertising contraceptives and assisted suicide to attendees? OR... serving ads for deals too good to pass up to people at those venues, (legitimately,) just to get people to show up for their free, or steeply discounted... whatever, so as to get their personal info so as to be able to ID them, get their license plates, see where they live, etc. No, the ads for personal injury lawyers is tame stuff, really, and not really anything to get excited over.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Yes, but presumably this is in cooperation with hospitals (or I guess more likely retailers in hospitals? retailers beside hospitals?) because you need some kind of control, either directly or by some kind of business arrangement, of the access points that are designated as being part of the fence.
Hard to control someone else’s radio signal, especially when it is illegal for you, in any way whatsoever, to interfere with it. The hospital does not need to participate, condone, or acquiesce; the towers are outside the hospital, and you carried your phone inside. Radio transception is pretty neat shit... but triangulation is even cooler.
In school, a class on it was called, if memory serves, “PFM,” which I believe stood for Pulse Frequency Modulation, or something like that, but because of how complex and neat this was, it had acquired the nickname “Pure Fucking Magic”. It is through such dark magic that they can tell where your phone is, without the hospital helping them in any way, agreeing, or participating. It’s also how the FCC finds pirate radio stations, unless I’m very much mistaken.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
No compromise. Compete extermination of the concept of someone annoying someone by peddling goods and services.
This barbaric medieval insane practice needs to stop.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Or you could use an OS that lets you deny that permission, or that lets you deny the permission for background process location services. iOS does this, as do some Android distros.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Might be worth pointing out that there is a good chance that these practices are illegal in certain parts of the world.
For example, although the EU has garnered a lot of publicity recently for the General Data Protection Regulation (which came in to effect 5/25), location tracking applications have run the risk of breaching EU law for at least he last two years. As this article shows, the main reason this practice falls foul of EU law is that the actual tracking/location determination takes place without user consent.
There are certain advertising agencies, such as Outbrain and Tamboola which embed click-bait content in sites (I'm looking at you, Slashdot) and which track their users via geolocation data they harvest from ISPs. This practice is likely illegal, at least in the EU.
We can only hope that US lawmakers are willing to take a similar stand...
Permission is no longer a factor. They don't need your phone to self reveal its location ... cell's are so small that triangulation is relative straightforward by the provider, they sell this data.
I know this because my company makes m2m devices and we often use this feature to locate our older non-gps equipped devices... the location quality is surprisingly good, it's often within hundreds of feet, if the hospital hosts a small cell in their ER waiting room it would be dead simple.
That's true, but that's also independent of any apps you have installed. Although it has less to do with the size of the cells, and more with the advanced beam-steering.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
honestly I don't get why we view this as worse than any other targetted ads. At least in my view, ambulance chasers are a pain in the ass, because they tend to add one extra thing to hound you when you are already in a shitty situation. When we are talking advertising on smart phones, they aren't replacing the conversation you should be having with your doctor, they are replacing the ad for dog food at the bottom of your e-mail client or whatever. I fully understand people rallying against targetted ads, privacy collection, your phone blurting out everywhere you go and selling it to advertisers etc.... but I honestly don't see why it's any worse. IMO the only form I would say would be abnormally terrible (or worse than the general concept that allows the practice at all), is if say an alcohol company targetted ads at AA meeting locations etc... Appart from that I'd say either be pissed at your phone tracking you and letting advertisers see where you are at all, or accept the practices as they are.
Lawyers are gonna lawyer.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
It's not unavoidable. Make each instance of selling that data worth a $1MM lawsuit, and watch that data get locked down by the cell company. Probably not even kept beyond an hour too.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Please excuse my ignorance. But if more people sue the hospital for scrapes and scratches., Won't we all be paying higher bills if we have to go to the hospital??
Our entire legal system and society is based on the premise that we don't have huge, mega-powerful bureaucracies creating an enforcing draconian regulations. Instead, we have the concept of liability and the court system, where injured parties can enforce the law upon those who have injured them in violation of the law. It's a free market of legal enforcement. It's the tradeoff between having a Stasi and no concept of liability at all. The only people who want to get rid of it are the people who don't want to be held accountable for their actions.
Um, I’m pretty sure they could get a whole lot worse. Are they deliberately causing car crashes, sabotaging consumer safety products, or hiring thugs to beat random (rich-seeming) strangers to drum up business yet?
I do not know abut beating people up but someone is responsible for sabotaging car design leading to more crashes which would otherwise not happen.
Oh, I forgot... it could be worse, they could track phones that spend most evening in the same house as another phone that has visited a site like Ashley Madison and serve ads for private eyes and divorce lawyers, or they could geofence bars or pubs or liquor stores and if you visit them too often you start getting ads for rehab, or if a phone that spends most nights, again, with another and one phone is spotted spending a lot of time at a place that sells guns it serves the other with ads for crisis centers, battered spouses shelters, etc... no, the thing with ads for lawyers is NOT as creepy as it can get, either.
I would be disappointed if they are *not* doing all of the above.
How is it that they operate in the operations and intelligence business? Worst case is based on capabilities and not alleged intentions?
How about geofencing places where political rallies are held, and advertising contraceptives and assisted suicide to attendees? OR... serving ads for deals too good to pass up to people at those venues, (legitimately,) just to get people to show up for their free, or steeply discounted... whatever, so as to get their personal info so as to be able to ID them, get their license plates, see where they live, etc. No, the ads for personal injury lawyers is tame stuff, really, and not really anything to get excited over.
I have no doubt someone is collecting this data even if they have not figured out what to do with it yet.