The Next Frontier of Consumer Exploitation By Corporations 166
First time accepted submitter alisonuw writes "So what if Google knows where I'm planning my next vacation and suggests hotels for me? Sure, it's creepy, but is there really any harm in companies tracking my info to target ads to me? Professor Ryan Calo (UW law) is out with a new paper that demonstrates the real harm behind these practices, making consumers vulnerable to making decisions that go against their self-interest (ie: predatory lending, price inflation, etc). The Atlantic has an article today that outlines the new research."
obvious (Score:2, Interesting)
You need a paper to demonstrate that other people making decisions for you is not necessarily in your best interest? Seriously?
And yes, they make the decisions. You are a fool if you think that it's just suggestions. I've worked in corporate environments long enough to know that the people who "prepare" the decision are really the ones making it, because by the selection you make, the way you present the alternatives and the data you choose to use or discard, you can pretty much make sure that any of the ch
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Oh come on, other people are not making decisions for you just because they show you an advertisement.
In fact most people simply gain more resistant to advertising the more blatant it is.
You over state your case. Yet, I wager you consider yourself more immune to advertising than the average man on the street.
Re:obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Not because of ads, but because of the choices they offer you. False dilemmas are the staple of politics today, and people are easily pushed into those false "either or" decisions. "For us or against us!" (really? I neither care 'bout you nor your terrorists, leave me alone!). "Bail banks out or the economy crumbles!" (nope, bail out the people holding saving accounts and let the bank fall flat on its face, worked well for Iceland. Remember Iceland? The country that started it all? They're through with their recession, we barely started ours).
I'm pretty sure the average reader can come up with more examples. We are presented false choices, where one is so horrible that we grudgingly accept the not quite that horrible one as the "right" choice.
What we fail to do is think about other options. There are usually plenty of them. But they are not as favorable for those that present us the false dilemma.
Re:obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh come on, other people are not making decisions for you just because they show you an advertisement.
What do you think politics is?
Politicians can use this data to make sure their public image is exactly what the public will respond to. Politicians don't need actual policies any more, just this data.
Once they get voted in, you can bet they're making decisions for you.
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In fact most people simply gain more resistant to advertising the more blatant it is.
That's not true. We all think it is, but it isn't. Marketing has gone to great lengths to feed us a bunch of lies, so we don't jeopardise the core business model.
In-your-face advertisement works very, very well. Maybe not in the sense of promoting a product, but for establishing a brand and creating imaginary brand presence, it is fantastic.
Oh come on, other people are not making decisions for you just because they show you an advertisement.
Again, you would be surprised how effective advertisement is and how little it takes to swing a decision one way or the other. Sure, if you are dead-set on something els
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Many times by NOT making decision you already made one, and those who are in the field know very well how to put people on the spot and, even without blinking an eyelid, the future of the sheeples have already been pre-arranged
That sounds very grand and sinister, but it doesn't actually say much. Care to give some examples?
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How about NOT even showing a better-off individual cheaper alternatives on a flight search.
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How about NOT even showing a better-off individual cheaper alternatives on a flight search.
Which is scummy, to be sure, but doesn't sound anything like OP's hyperbolic scenario of doom.
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This kind of thing already happens. There was a controversy a while back when it was discovered that travel sites show more expensive [usatoday.com] travel options to Mac users first. Since macs cost more than PC's it was presumed their users had more disposable income.
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It's been happening for years in more and less intelligent forms. There's nothing new here. You either stop Madison Avenue, or go off the ad grid.
Oh, wait.....
Re:It's much more than that ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I had to work with unemployed people quite a bit in my life. It's fascinating how they are being pressed into "jobs" for ... well, whatever the economy currently needs. No matter whether they can do it, whether they have any kind of affinity with it or whether they are absolutely unsuitable for it.
Over here, to keep your unemployment money, you have to jump through the hoops presented to you. So people do it. You get sent to various training courses that change in interesting ways over time. About 10 years ago, everyone was sent to a "web designer" and "network administration" class. Today, they prefer to send people to classes dealing with nursing and geriatric care. Again, whether the people have any kind of social skill, whether they can actually lift weights that easily pass the 100 lbs (or 200 lbs, depending on the person they have to lug around), whether they have any kind of affinity with it, doesn't matter.
People are exchangeable. And expendable.
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Look, if you've picked a field where there's too few positions or you're haven't performed well enough that anyone wants to hire you or you're just getting screwed over by the job market then tough luck. If you can get a job in some other field then I don't care if you hate it, I don't care if you're not particularly good at it as long as you're doing well enough to be employable that's what you should do rather than go on unemployment benefits and get society's money for free. Doesn't matter if you have a
Irony (Score:2)
to keep your unemployment money, you have to jump through the hoops presented to you.
When you give someone money that they didn't earn, it's fair to attach strings to that money.
It's ironic that you are complaining about targeted ads, and also about job training that was not targeted to the recipients' interests or aptitude. If the purveyors of job training used some of the same techniques that sellers do when they create targeted ads, the recipients of the training would have been much better off.
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Having been there, I can absolutely say that it IS NOT fair to attach strings. Not having strings is critical to the person, who is worse off than the average joe, being able to maneuver through the NEXT hurdle life is going to throw at him.
I'll go so far as to say that charity with strings is solely for the benefit of the giver, and is not charity at all.
That said, charity of limited scope, but without strings, can be quite beneficial, but is still i\stitutionalized, which does make it less personal.
No, yo
Even more irony! (Score:2)
your problem is more that you have no say on when and how the charity is given, but you would if you gave it yourself, instead of hoping that somebody else, the government even, would take that responsibility from you
To the exact contrary of your assertion, I do give charity myself, and I hate that the government has, to some extent, taken that responsibility from me. I give to highly efficient charities, but when government administers the redistribution of my wealth, a large fraction of it is consumed by the bureaucracy and does not reach the persons in need.
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When you give someone money that they didn't earn, it's fair to attach strings to that money.
Your conclusion is correct. Your assumption isn't. I have earned any unemployment money I might get all my life, by paying into the system. In my country, there is an amount deducted from your monthly wage specifically to cover unemployment. It's basically an insurance system, except that it's state-run.
So yes, anyone who did work before becoming unemployed did in fact earn that money.
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- Presenting tariff plans, insurance plans, deals 7 packages, any-kind-of-option in complex and opaque ways that use 'friendly' language, and pics of smiling people — so they can channel you towards whatever 'sounds' like a good deal.
- Changing the way the issue is discussed so the opinions form to 'prefer' what lobbyists favour (creationism, climate change, health-care, the wars, politicians)
- The entire PR and lobbying industry and everything it does.
And thats just the top of my head. — Did y
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And yes, they make the decisions. You are a fool if you think that it's just suggestions. I've worked in corporate environments long enough to know that the people who "prepare" the decision are really the ones making it, because by the selection you make, the way you present the alternatives and the data you choose to use or discard, you can pretty much make sure that any of the choices left is in your interest.
We're talking about advertising here, not actual purchases. Now, I have no doubt that advertising can influence people to buy things they normally wouldn't buy, or buy Brand Y when they'd normally buy Brand X, and that the first links to come up in a Google search are the ones that most of the time ultimately lead to money changing hands--but no one is actually eliminating choices with targeted ads, for God's sake. Buyers still have the choice to find what they actually want.
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I would agree with you if it didn't mean that a supplier that doesn't deserve to survive survives.
Seriously, anyone here not able to think of at least a handful companies that ONLY exist because consumers are effin' stupid, and that would do the world (and their industry) a huge favor if they just vanished?
Sadly, often they're even the market leaders. Flies and shit and all that...
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All banks?
Surely the concept of banking is something that people will always need or want, even if the vast majority of banks provide that service corruptly... The alternative is what.. keep a hoard of fungible assets on hand and guard it yourself?
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no one deserves to be ripped off.
a person may be stupid, but that does not negate the wrongness of the person doing the ripping off.
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...And you just described our voting system.
Oh, and if you didn't vote, you have no rightto complain. And if you _oted and your candidate one, what ar. You complaining for? It's your own fault. And if you voted
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(...after being rudely interrupted by a cell phone burp) and if you voted and lost, you can't complain, you pays yor doller and takes yer chances.
Point being, I refuse to achnowledge responsibility for the power of those who destroy us. I never had any say in the matter.
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Representative democracy is the poster child of "being offered a limited set of (viable) choices".
Obvious? (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't this obvious?
The reason companies advertise is because it influences us into giving them money (otherwise advertising wouldn't exist at all).
By definition, products advertised are not products we would seek out ourselves (otherwise they wouldn't need to advertise).
Targetted advertising means more succesfully influencing our decission making (otherwise it would be called "useless but more expensive advertising").
Re:Obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, your definition is bogus.
Advertising is meant to inform you that Coke is available here. You were thirsty anyway or you wouldn't have noticed it.
Advertising a steaming fresh sack of shit won't get you customers who were really looking for new shoes.
Re:Obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Coke is a fresh sack of shit, it's not water, juice or milk and provides no significant benefits at a remarkable markup. The fact that this was your example is not even ironic, it's simply sad.
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Coke is a significant jolt of caffeine and sugar. If that's what you want, buy it.
If, on the other hand, you prefer your caffeine hot, buy coffee or tea, and sugar it to taste....
Re:Obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, your definition is bogus.
No, your definition is bogus.
Advertising (really marketing) is at least two things:
1) To inform you of options to fill a need.
2) To convince you that you have a need.
(1) is useful in society, (2) is destructive to society
The problem is that practically all marketing tends to (2) over time. For example, sexy girls in advertisements. When they are in ads for stereotypically men's products (like beer) its obvious they are of type 2, but even when they are in ads for women's products like clothing they are still manipulative because they tell women if you just had this product you would be sexy too.
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#2 cannot be arbitrary designated as destructive just because you find some products advertised as being something you wouldn't seek out for yourself.
Ignorance is equally destructive to society. Advertising campaigns can also educate.
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> Advertising campaigns can also educate.
Yeah? Name one.of any significance.
Please say a pharmaceutical.
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Advertising campaigns can also educate.
Can, but don't. An advert that is designed to educate is created (and paid for... remember this doesn't come free) specifically to push an agenda or a product and come across as education.
Yes you're educating a user that pimple treatments are available, but you're also trying to get your product in their minds, and hands, and at the same time enforcing the idea that it's not okay to have pimples in the first place.
Yes on the market there exists products to help you stop smoking, this is me educating you, by
(2) is not necessarily destructive (Score:2)
There have been times that I wasn't aware of a genuine deficiency -- let alone that there was a product or service that could correct that deficiency -- until an advertisement made me aware.
Are some advertisers slimeballs who attempt to manipulate you into falsely believing that you have a need? Sure, and consumers should be educated to develop defenses against this. That doesn't change the fact that on the other end of the integrity spectrum are advertisers who raise awareness about genuine needs.
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I'd love to find a generic brand cola that tastes exactly the same as Coke. Of all the non-Coke alternatives I've tried (including Pepsi), I've found that that they do taste of cola, but their taste is still significantly different than Coke. And even Coke tastes slightly different in different countries due to variations in the bottling process.
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Most companies sell sacks of shit. Advertising is how they convince people to buy it. No-one needs a car capable of 180MPH, no-one needs a £1000 watch, no-one needs this year's fashionable clothes.
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That has got to be the most ludicrous thing I've ever seen positively moderated.
So the coke advert in my sunday newspaper is to tell me there's coke available in my own flat? The coke advert at the bus stop is to tell me that there's coke available at the bus stop? The advert tells me that coke is available somewhere in the country, nothing more.
But it gets worse:
> You were thirsty anyway or you wouldn't have noticed it.
How can I not not
Only the stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously. Who here pays attention to the ads or does not have an ad blocker?
I never even see ads anymore. Even the ones my ad blocker does not block.
This only affects stupid people.
Stupid people don't need protection.... ...wait...
They don't need protection from the world. Stupid people need protection as in condoms so they stop breeding.
This only affects stupid people ? (Score:2)
This only affects stupid people
HA !
Those who think that they are not stupid, ARE
Re: This only affects stupid people ? (Score:2)
That's half the people on slashdot, who think they are geniuses and need to protect everyone else
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Re:Only the stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
This goes way beyond mere advertising. It also involves the price you pay and which products are available in shops near you. Restaurants may increase the price of their meals if they know you are very hungry, it's unlikely that you will leave once you have been seated. Cigaret-vendors will lower their prices if they figure out you are trying to quit.
The old adagium "Knowledge is power" still holds.
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There are many ad blockers.
Which ad blocker do you use?
And why did you choose that one?
Re:Only the stupid (Score:4, Informative)
I use multiple: AdBlock Plus and Ghostery in my browser, a hosts file and since I'm using Peerblock anyway to block the RIAA and cronies from my torrent client I added an ads blocklist there too.
Re:Only the stupid (Score:4, Informative)
I use multiple: AdBlock Plus and Ghostery in my browser, a hosts file
Try RequestPolicy [requestpolicy.com] it is better than a hosts file because it is on a per-website basis. You can let "slashdot.org" pull content from "fsdn.net" while blocking all other websites from pulling content from "fsdn.net"
And it is a whitelist system rather than a black-list like the hosts file, adblock and ghostery, so nobody sneaks through just because you haven't updated it. The downside is that if those approaches are like driving an automatic transmission, using RequestPolicy is like driving a stick-shift.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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it actually is in YOUR own, best interests to protect and guide them.
Should we teach them critical thinking skills and provide them with consumer education? Yes
Should we frustrate the efforts of people who design advertising, when they are just doing their jobs by trying to improve the targeting and effectiveness of ads? No
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Yes, we should. Killing off parasites is in everyone's interest. If they can stay alive by preying on the weak today, they might evolve enough to prey on me tomorrow. And even if they don't, they still distort the marketplace so that the best product might not win, which will end up hurting me. And even if they fail at that, as long as advertis
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Killing off parasites is in everyone's interest? Then why was mebendazole discontinued in the US, which is practically mandatory before pre-surgical steroids, and the law now prohibits individuals from importing the super-cheap, anti-cancer non-toxic dewormer from Canada or any other 1st, 2nd, or 3rd world nation?
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Google Mebendazole discontinued: I get this
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread822776/pg1 [abovetopsecret.com]
For information on it being made illegal,
http://www.elderlawanswers.com/buying-prescription-drugs-from-canada-legal-or-illegal-1204 [elderlawanswers.com]
Basically, in support of their IP, the pharmacy companies got laws passed banning parallel imports. Now, they have every incentive to discontinue safe, cheap, effective, OTC drugs with expired patents, in favor of forcing people to buy dangerous, less effective high profit drugs. Which
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Let me add that Mebendazole WAS OTC before it was discontinued. As of the time it was discontinued, it requred a prescription because it had to be compounded at the sleazy / less safe compounding pharmaciesthat were legal, but making illegal substitutions. However, those are now being shut down...
Most of us fit your definition of parasite (Score:2)
So, you would take away the freedom to advertise one's products or services, on the grounds that it's a parasitic activity.
I myself have advertised my services, when I sent résumés to prospective employers.
Have you ever sent out a résumé? You parasite!
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Nobody was talking about making advertising illegal (altough constant tracking probably should fall under existing stalking laws), just about whether we should "frustrate the efforts" of the marketers. Why do you feel the need to twist the issue?
Nobody was talking about that either
Re:Only the stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
If the choice of stupid people wouldn't affect the choices I have, I'd agree with you.
For reference, see politics. Or (*shudder*) TV.
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This only affects stupid people.
People like you are the easiest ones to sucker because you think you are immune.
This stuff isn't just about overt and in your face advertising. It is also about product-placement, paid-for reviews on big-name websites, shill reviews on "consumer" websites and pretty much anything people with hundred million dollar marketing budgets can come up with - like this nationwide campaign [teamcoco.com]
If you believe that you are able to withstand a hundred million dollars worth of research into how to manipulate the human psyche
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I think you missed the point. This was about marketing, not advertising (advertising is just one small part of marketing).
So you're blocking advertising, great. But what if the fact you have an adblocker installed on your machine (which is generically trivial to detect, BTW) means you automatically pay 10% more for everything? That's the world the author of the original study is warning us of. That the data collected via widespread tracking can be used to penalize one class of customers for fuck-all rea
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I've never found the need for an ad blocker. I don't see them anyway, even when they flashing on the screen. They just get tuned out. I do keep the speakers turned off, though, except when I want the computer to make noise.
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Serious question, how much toothpaste do you put on the brush? You'll see why I ask when you reply.
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arrogant and ignorant.
you are truly dangerous.
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The most fun I've ever had that didn't involve naked women was buying a car. All the power is in the buyer's hands, because cars are fungible. Even if you are utterly, completely committed to a particular model with particular options, there's no reason you have to buy it from a particular salesman, or dealership. They know this, and try desperately to keep you from realizing it. Once they realize you do know it, they realize their choice is not how much commission they'll make, but whether they'll make a s
In store tracking (Score:5, Interesting)
If you linger in the baby aisle, expect to get baby ads and coupons without asking for them. You might even find out your teenage daughter is pregnant from coupons you get. [forbes.com]
Very intrusive: Get served ads to your phone and all devices based on store browsing and the kind of stores. You have no choice to opt out.
Medium intrusive: Get asked if you would like coupons for what they think you like. Ads on devices or apps that are ad supported are targeted.
Low level: You get coupons on your receipt based on your walking pattern and habits. (this already happens)
Future exploitation, the terrifying final form.
Location based A.I. scans your physical body for any and all brand name clothing. Tied into the parking lot cameras, it logs your car and plate number. Using sets of data (The estimated outfit cost, car value, car color psychological assessment, insurance carrier) it evaluates your income bracket and psychological profile.
A.I. scans all store records for purchases that match what you are wearing. If the purchases is detected to have not been made at the store, coupons and ads targeted at those articles are sent (You too can get Feragamo shoes here).
Each time you stop, the time and location and nearby goods are noted. Any regular walking patterns are logged. If you walk the same pattern every time, the lcd screens change to ads targeting you along your route.
As you approach merchandise displays, eye tracker record what items you look at and what in the adverts your eyes followed.
As follows: 15seconds female cleavage, 5seconds product, 1second dog.
Unregulated
Re:In store tracking (Score:5, Funny)
Given the quality of the average AI, you'll get ads for women's lingerie and directions to a nearby transvestite club, the product and a beasty porn page.
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Unregulated ,the future of consumer exploitation is terrifying.
I see several current regulatory obstacles for a would-be intrusive advertiser. For example, suppose they uncover a medical condition through such monitoring. That falls under some pretty serious regulations for how they store, use, and distribute medical data.
Otherwise, I see diminishing returns to this sort of strategy. Ultimately, even with perfect knowledge of the shopper's state of mind and behavior, it's just a somewhat more challenging environment for potential customers. There's only so much you
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If you have a phone, as you walk around a shopping center or store will are being tracked.
In less than 0.001% of stores, so far.
Very intrusive: Get served ads to your phone and all devices based on store browsing and the kind of stores. You have no choice to opt out.
I have already opted out. My phone doesn't receive ads. And if they text me, I'll make a scene in the middle of their store about how illegal unsolicited text ads are, in front of their other customers.
Unregulated ,the future of consumer exploitation is terrifying.
Only for the weak and the stupid, who have always been terrified of their own shadow. The obnoxiousness of some retailers is why so much business has moved online, where it's far, far easier to control how much advertising you get forced down your throat (and, in fact, it
Opting out (Score:2)
Very intrusive: Get served ads to your phone and all devices based on store browsing and the kind of stores. You have no choice to opt out.
Sure I do. If I find a store's marketing technique creepy, I am free to never enter that particular store. If enough consumers do likewise, the store will rapidly stop using that technique.
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Two things.
1) Phone systems have no way to identify you. That is key - just because they can track which aisles you walk down and pause in front of, doesn't mean you're identifiable. You're just "Person 1" to them.
2) The baby tracking thing uses purch
Caveat emptor (Score:3)
As always, responsible people should ensure they check the facts before spending money. /sarcasm
I find the Internet, including Goggle quite useful for this, actually...
Recently I got a much better price for renting a car via a specialist site than I could on the renter's own website, and it's often the same for hotels.
So yes, I can believe that you may not get the best deal if, say, Hertz partners with Google to target you.
But nobody is forcing you to click on the ad...
Yet.
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Recently I got a much better price for renting a car via a specialist site than I could on the renter's own website, and it's often the same for hotels.
The kicker is that the specialist site keeps up to 25% of that better price.
You can almost always call up [company] and ask them to beat the price you found on [website] and they'll do it, because they'll make more money that way.
Loyalty Programs (Score:3, Insightful)
Women Over 35 - $32.99
Women 35 And Under - $29.99
Men 38 And Over - $28.99
Men Under 38 - $26.99
However, common loyalty programs at stores profile customers by age, gender, purchasing habits, and all sorts of other demographic criteria and selectively issue coupons and promotions that have the same result (e.g., a drug store might print out a coupon for a male customer for lady's perfume to incentivize a purchase before Mother's Day, but wouldn't issue such a coupon to female customer who is inherently more likely to buy the product).
Not worried yet... (Score:2)
It's Saturday morning. I'm a
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Haven't bothered with FB in a while, but they were serving me heaps of "Meet a Chinese|Thai Woman" ads,probably based on my having friends in and/or having posted photos from trips to those places. This in spite of the fact that my prefs have indicated from Day One that I was either in a relationship or engaged to be married, and I've never selected any options that would indicate I'm looking to hook up. Haven't actually logged in since I changed my status from "Relationship" to "Engaged" some months back,
Just wait for the Columbia House of vacations (Score:2)
Just wait for the Columbia House of vacations where if you don't say no to the trip of the month or year you get billed for it and it's non refundable after that.
Does It Matter If Companies Are Tracking Us ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is not does it, or does it not matter companies are tracking us, they ARE tracking us regardless
The real question is what are we, the consumers, going to do?
We can be passive - and let them (the corporations / governments ) manipulate our lives with all their suggestions/advises via their ad/marketing/propaganda campaign (as has been happening for the past few generations)
We can be on guard and do our best to make sure that our lives stays our lives, not the lives the governments / corporations want us to have
The society in the future will have a new gap, a gap in between people who live their lives as individuals, or, people who live their lives as sheeples
Re:Does It Matter If Companies Are Tracking Us ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you're right. The pessimist in me tells me, though, that you won't have the option to live and not be sheeple. Why bother with you, individual, uncontrollable and no asset as a consumer? You don't consume what you shall, you don't do what you shall, you may even pose a threat to the status quo. Begone!
Re: Does It Matter If Companies Are Tracking Us ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Does It Matter If Companies Are Tracking Us ? (Score:5, Insightful)
We can be passive - and let them (the corporations / governments ) manipulate our lives...
If "them" includes your government then you're truly screwed... The government is exactly the structure you should use to control big corporations, through regulations.
If you don't trust your government to do a good job at that... well, then you should fix your government first.
Sure, you can try not to buy from big corporations, but at this point it is not realistic to do this successfully on a large scale
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The government is exactly the structure you should use to control big corporations, through regulations.
Actually, competition is the structure that is best for controlling big corporations. At a fundamental level, corporations are still only as powerful as their dollar, and competition spreads that dollar and forces them to focus on screwing their competitors more than their customers and the public in general.
But, I agree with you when a corporation becomes so powerful that they can screw both competitors and consumers, and still have enough cash left over to buy their government lobby.
Asking for hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
Note well, some media outlets have praised the Obama campaign for using "Big Data" tools to target voters. Do you want or expect this chief executive to hypocritically discourage business from using the same techniques? http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/508836/how-obama-used-big-data-to-rally-voters-part-1/ [technologyreview.com]
Nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
Me? I pick my poison. I'd rather have a strong central gov't I can at least try to influence and use. Maybe if we can get the schools to indoctrinate kids on the importance of democratic participation instead of the intrinsic beauty of capitalism....
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The article says "Firms will increasingly be able to trigger irrationality or vulnerability in consumers"
This is not a problem with the firms. This is a problem with the consumers. And these techniques are not new. They've been in use for centuries, by people commonly called "scam artists." And yeah, it's bad for the gullible, but civilization hasn't ended from it, and won't.
And when 'not just the right good, but a customized pitch, delivered late at night, when the company knows you, particularly, have a t
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There is a name for being on guard 24/7: PTSD. Do we REALLY want everyone having to be on guard 24/7?
Back off, Taco Cowboy, and grow a spine (Score:2, Troll)
I love that certain services, like Gmail and broadcast television, are paid for by advertising instead of by me. And targeted advertising is nothing new. If you tuned in to a soap opera in 1965, you were far more likely to see an ad for cookware than for a pickup truck.
Since I have chosen to accept advertising in my life, by using ad-supported services, I prefer to see targeted ads. They're far better than the alternative: random ads that have no relevance for me and are a poor match to my interests, loc
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consumers vulnerable to making decisions that go against their self-interest
And the remedy is. . .more regulation?
No, the remedy is to train people never to make a hasty decision. Rather, consult with your family & community of faith on whether it's a good call.
It's the only remedy that can work (Score:4, Informative)
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IOW social engineering is the solution?
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the remedy is more regulation, in the form of declaring an absolute Right to Privacy. its amazing how many things such a simple right would fix.
Re:Does It Matter If Companies Are Tracking Us ? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Some level of tracking, advertising and marketing IS worth it, even to the most tin-foil hatter types. Regulation is better than none of it, period, because without it, life gets considerably harder and just downright shitty, even for adventurous people. Would I hell want to go around trying to enter nondescript buildings trying to find out where the hell the café is. Society would grind to a halt.
You're argument seems to be that if we didn't have advertising we'd never know where or what we need, when we need it. That's absurd. If we need some product or service, we can just look it up on the internet (or a phone book), rather than have their ads shoved down our throats 24-7. Even without that...if I need a toaster, I know what stores to go to.
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Wait a minute...
They have ads on the internet?
Add to your list of things to know - "AdBlock Plus" and you should at least be able to ignore that they're tracking you and make your choices on your own.
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AdBlock and RequestPolicy can help you to not ever see a single advertisement. It's quite some time since I've seen the last ad on the web.
And I'm not even in principle against ads. However, internet ads as installed now have several undesirable properties:
Re:Does It Matter If Companies Are Tracking Us ? (Score:4, Interesting)
But Calo also offers another option: "Imagine," he writes, "if major platforms such as Facebook and Google were obligated, as a matter of law or best practice, to offer a paid version of their service."
I thought about a parallel to that a while ago: imagine having free/paid versions of an app. The paid version has no tracking/advertising, and the price is continually adjusted so that 50% of the users choose to pay and 50% choose advertising/tracking. At that point you would actually know the median value of privacy.
Or you could just dig through the financials of CVS drugstores: you can get a prescription drug discount plan there, but it requires you to waive your HIPAA privacy rights (signature required every year) to access it. It's popularity (if the plan isn't withdrawn because of bad PR) should say much the same thing.
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There are other options. My lawyer said that it's still illegal and that the suggestion reminds him of Nazi Germany, but there are other options!
at least they can get their own health care plan (Score:2)
at least they can get their own health care plan under the law if there job does not offer it.
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Maybe they wanted to associate the practice with pre-existing uses of the phrase, "market manipulation," some of which are crimes to manipulate perceptions....