Pay-For-Visit Advertising

theodp writes "US patent office documents released Thursday show that a startup named Pelago is seeking a patent covering Pay-For-Visit Advertising, which uses GPS, Bluetooth, or RFID on your mobile devices to track your travels to see if you wander into a place of business that appeared in an ad shown earlier on your cellphone, PDA, or laptop. To maximize ad revenue, phone calls are also tracked to see if you dial a number associated with an ad, and financial transactions are examined to see if you make a purchase from an advertiser. The application goes on to note that the system may be of interest to government agencies. Pelago just raised $7.4M from the likes of KPCB and Jeff Bezos."

no thanks

i've got to think that this will create a market for phones that wont allow this kind of thing to happen. i'd go without a cell phone before i'd let myself be tracked like that everywhere i go.

Re:no thanks

Oh and you shouldn't use a credit, debit card or checks for any of your transactions, forget about Buying stuff online or mail order.

Back in them olden days when we went to the corner store Bob behind the counter knew what your spending habbits were and gave you options on what was new and good, and if Bob was a bit chatty half the town would know your spending habbits. We acuatlly have far more privacy per day. You are being tacked as a number and that number is rairly connected to you personally. So the whole town doesn't know your spending habbits just some guys from xyz knows that 9384123223 likes to buy keyboards, or is in a market for keyboards. Don't expect the governement to get it right if they cant realize when you put in a change of address for a new license and they will not send you notices that your registration is out of date to the new address I doubt they can figure anything else about you.

Minority Report

Next they'll be tracking me by retinal scans to see if its REALLY ME and I didn't just loan my device to a sibling, friend or child. Then it'll be cross-referenced with my credit report and my bank account to see if I can even afford it, but they won't care - they'll just offer me a new card with a limit that is just enough to cover whatever asinine product they're trying to force at me.

and first post.

Can't I just have the chip implanted already?

I really dont want to carry all those gadgets around, especially at the beach. So if you could just inject that RFID tag into my neck right here...

Data bill

cell phones and pda uses may end have to pay the data bill for ads that they may not even want and how many people will want to waste there battery's on Bluetooth for this?

Consumer participation required?

From reading the synopsis it seems that it would require the participation/consent of the mobile phone user to allow tracking. From activating bluetooth visibility, or accepting a phone with an RFID feature. It'd be interesting to see if this has any similarity to the oft-rumoured GPhone.

But why would a consumer, given the relatively low prices of cell phones, tariffs and contracts, accept this? I'm speaking from the UK but I can't imagine that US cell contracts, etc, are so prohibitively expensive that this would be an attractive form of subsidy. Especially given the potential 'government interest.'

So basically...

They are going to track who I call, where I go, and what I buy...while having all of this linked to personally identifying information. Who in their right mind would subscribe to such a service? The privacy implications are mind boggling...if the police can subpena this information or the government can "silently" access it, say goodbye to the American way of life...

Re:So basically...

The privacy implications are mind boggling

The privacy implications of a phone that reports back to ad agencies isn't nearly as mind boggling as the Fed's new law that says all US/international communications can be bugged with no search warrant needed. The American way of life is already long gone. The problem is that nobody seems to care.

what a crock

most of the places I got to, I got to via personal recommendation.

Not to mention, that would require a corporate agency tracking my every move. I'll just put it this way:
If you don't trust the government, ostensibly supposed to be for the benefit of the people living in its juristiction, watching your every move, how the hell can you trust a corporation, ostensibly (and in practice) supposed to be for the financial and power gain of those in cahrge of the company, to keep track of you to that extent?

Gasp!

Companies are trying to evaulate to see if their marketing is working or not. How dare they, I want to be flooded with adds that I don't care about, vs. showing me products and or services that may help me in life, with sites offering better tracking services they could charge more per add, thus less adds per page. But that is not the slashdot way, we want NO adds but still we want our websites to run for free even though these people deticate their lives full time to this and have expenses too. Good targeting means less adds, more revenue to web sites, and less anoyances during the day. If Big Brother wants to know your spending habbits they just need a warent and pull your bank information. No need for this crazy loosy goosy stuff, that will mostly help make your life better.

Can you say "Minority Report"

Reminds me of the scene where they are scanning your eyes and offering advertising or know what you bought last... "How did you like those t-shirts Mr. Johnson?" No thanks

Re:Can you say "Minority Report"

Here is the scary thing. I think most marketing professionals saw Minority Report and said, "That's the greatest idea ever!"

It begins

I've never been one of the people that sports a tinfoil hat, and now I can't because they'll know when I go to the store, what I bought, how much I payed for it and what I was thinking when I bought it.

Now I will generate revenue for somebody

without my knowledge of who, what or where, just by going to work everyday.

1. Set up a surveillance society,
2. Watch everybody all the time,
3. ???
4. Profit

Steps 1 & 2 are already happening whether we want them to or not. Its a done deal.

But the greedy little prick wants to patent it too.

God I wish I had balls that big.

Just another reason. . .

not to have a cell phone. Whenever anyone asks why I don't have a phone, my standard answer is:

"Don't need one, don't want one. Besides, why would I want people to be able to track where I am?"

Tinfoil Hat

"...uses GPS, Bluetooth, or RFID on your mobile devices to track your travels to see if you wander into a place of business that appeared in an ad shown earlier on your cellphone, PDA, or laptop.

Wow! I thought big brother was a problem. Now we have to watch out for big business too.

This just tells me...

that cell phone hacking will be the next big wave. Of course, this will start a whole new round of DCMA shenanigans and the chase will be on between the phone companies and their customers. Bad consumer, bad!!

I've got two words for you...

Terrible idea. If it is not enough that the NSA and FBI already track the behavior of citizens..*cough*...suspected terrorist without much oversight, what happens when they add this company's technology to its set of tools to monitor our activities. Looks like I'll be moving to Canada or Greenland soon...

Walk-fraud

1. Employees of a company all visit the ad of a competitor on their cellphones
2. They put all their cell phones in a box
3. A gopher takes the box of phones to the competitor's store, loiters for a few minutes, and comes back
4. UNprofit for the competitor as the pay-for-visit system deducts a bunch of money from the competitor's ad account

OK, its not very scalable, but it is amusing and will happen.

What does the customer get out of this?

Well, I guess that question wouldn't matter for a less invasive advertising platform, but what this seems to be proposing is currently impossible without the customer's explicit agreement and cooperation. So I'm wondering what they plan on giving the customer to make this ever remotely appealing?

How do they get the location data?

What allows them to access my cellphone remotely and access its GPS receiver? Why would my cellphone tell them the GPS location in the first place?
Are there really phones on the market which allow this? If so, what prevents evil terrorist(tm) to do the same as this company then? Are phonemakers terrorism supporters?!one!?eleven!

"Good afternoon, Mr. Yakamoto,"

let me be the first to say "Good afternoon, Mr. Yakamoto,".

http://curtismorley.com/2007/02/06/minority-report -and-mini-cooper/ [curtismorley.com]

Personalized advertising just jumped out of the cookie jar (no, get your mind off the choc chips lardy, I'm talking browsers here) and into the real world. Somehow the idea of large corporations tracking me makes me feel a great unease, we can trust them to value money over common decency and politeness.

sounds great

Marketers will be able to find out just how effective their ads are. When the answer turns out to be "not at all", they'll all lose their jobs, and we'll live in an advertising-free world.

(And while I'm dreaming, I'd like a free moon pony.)

Just so you know...

Something like 95% of patents never actually make it into production. People patent the stupidest things, just check out google patent search http://www.google.com/patents [google.com] and see all the crap that people pay good money to patent. People also patent things for other reasons besides wanting to produce the invention, such as to sell the patent, or to keep a competitor from using the invention. Just because it shows up in a patent application doesn't mean it'll be coming out in the near future. Heck, there are plenty of patents for perpetual motion machines, which stopped after the patent office started demanding a working example.

That will be the day ...

when I stop using mobile phones ... As soon as ads are on my phone, I'm done.

And for the record, I NEVER buy/go anywhere/do anything based on an ad but only on what my needs and wants really are.
Obviously I'm not the typical consumer nor will I ever be. I actually peel all the stickers and badges off of everything
I have, laptops/computers, cars, equipment, tools, etc. I just don't like the look of all that crap.

Another software patent?!

How the hell is this patentable? You've got several technologies that already exist (USB/Wifi/GSM/RFID, etc), all tied together with software. The only thing this plan describes is using the technologies for the purposes for which they were designed -- transmitting and receiving data. The USPO is CLUELESS if this gets approved!

Neat! I can't wait

Being a grumpy old git there are many businesses whose crappy advertising annoys me. With this new system i can write a script to hit all their websites 50 times a day and it will then cost them money every time i walk past their outlet. I may even go into the shop to say 'muahahahaha, pwned'

Stalking for fun and Profit

Has anyone else noticed the disturbing [to me, anyway] trend towards actions being illegal if performed by a private individual, but legally acceptable if performed by a corporation, for profit?

this sounds invasive

it sounds to me like an invasion of privacy. They are using tech to track where you are and what you just watched or saw. This just sounds so intrusive, I think I'm going to be sick.

I have two simple, effective words for Pelago...

Fuck. You.

Fuck this

There is no god damn this should be allowed. A company tracking me through GPS and through the calls I dial, all while sending ads to me? Does anyone else see the potential for abuse, if this gets cracked, allowing stalkers to use the GPS signal to see where people go, or see who someone calls?

Wunderbar

Oh, yay. Yet another way for big business to keep track of places we go, the food we eat, the air we breathe.

It's only a matter of time before toilets start detecting our DNA in order to show us targeted ads on the the stall door while we take a shit.

Previous Work of Art Here

I briefly talked about some of it on my blog. Good thing I did. http://geekspeaker.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!588D13 9CAFEFE462!921.entry [live.com] I've been working on a similar system for over a year. I didn't think someone was going to patent it. I assume Google has been working on a similar method for quite some time. I have diagrams that go back for over a year when I first had the idea. I've been trying to get some folks at my company more involved but it takes forever to get my ideas moving at my company. It's pretty frustrating to see something like this get a patent on it. The reason why this is so important is so many people spend more money via their cars which means advertising could be sucked back out of the internet in the not so near future perhaps.

And in other news ...

And in other news, the government has announced a program that is able to predict murders before they occur, and identifies the culprit who can be arrested before committing the crime.

"Free" ad-supported phone, anyone?

Maybe the whole point of this is to offer the phones and service to consumers who don't value their privacy, at no (monetary) cost? Maybe all local area calls are free, and long distance can be enabled by depositing funds to pay-as-you-go.

That way, they can offer phones where the capability to track and report and snoop on the user is built in and cannot be disabled.

Some people are stupid enough to go for it - and they might also be the ones that actually buy the stuff advertised in those wonderfully helpful emails the rest of us ignore as 'spam'. :)

The NSA Has Prior Art

The NSA, et al, have been doing this sort of tracking and collating for years. Think of it as a lost opportunity: the NSA could have been selling ads all this time!

(straightening my tinfoil hat)

their tracking would best serve them

so they can track me as I go around and beat the shit out of the assholes responsible for this invasion of my privacy and the spamming of my cell phone.

WOW...

Who needs to worry about big brother! We need to be more concerned with the brother who is always bumming change!

Run for the Hills!

Holy Sh** Batman!

Do you want ANY entity/company to have access to all the information this system requires?
Just think, they want to know:
        1 - Your GPS location. From your phone?
        2 - Your physical location (apparently you have an RFID implanted somewhere, and you passed by a reader they put up for this purpose)
        3 - What ads are put on your phone, PDA or computer. (Apparently they know your IP address.)
        4 - ALL your phone calls. To mine whether you called an advertiser.
        5 - ALL your "financial transactions" (read credit card transactions). To mine...
Yikes! I don't want ANYONE to know all that about me... Do you?

This is the scariest thing I've read for awhile...
It is ~almost~ enough to make me get rid of my phone (or remove the GPS ability) and stop using my credit card.
JWedg

Soon after this

Calls of the future...

Operator: 911 what's your emergency
Caller: My car just flipped, I'm trapped, I need help I'm at...
Commercial interrupts call: Need a new car? Try Jordan Ford for all your new car needs.
Operator: Is anyone injured?
Caller: Yes, I think I broke my arm
Another interruption: Remember, Memorial Hospital is your friend, we care about you and
                                            your family. Tell them to take you to Memorial.

Come on, it's the next logical step, they are going to start sending us text and picture ads, why not just voice over commercials durring a conversation...

Re:WAAAAH Slashdotters

Nope.

Re:Can I be the first to

Actually, copper would be a much better material to use. Silver would be even better, but more expensive.