Amazon is Offering Customers $2 Per Month For Letting the Company Monitor the Traffic on Their Phones (businessinsider.com) 64
Some Amazon users will now earn $2 dollar per month for agreeing to share their traffic data with the retail giant. From a report: Under the company's new invite-only Ad Verification program, Amazon is tracking what ads participants saw, where they saw them, and the time of day they were viewed. This includes Amazon's own ads and third-party ads on the platform. Through the program, Amazon hopes to offer more personalized-ad experiences to customers that reflect what they have previously purchased, according to Amazon.
"Your participation will help brands offer better products and make ads from Amazon more relevant,"Amazon wrote in its Shopper Panel FAQ. The $2 reward only applies to Amazon users invited to participate in the program, though customers who didn't get invited can get added to a waitlist and potentially join later, an Amazon spokesperson told Insider. The spokesperson declined to tell Insider how the company decided who to invite.
"Your participation will help brands offer better products and make ads from Amazon more relevant,"Amazon wrote in its Shopper Panel FAQ. The $2 reward only applies to Amazon users invited to participate in the program, though customers who didn't get invited can get added to a waitlist and potentially join later, an Amazon spokesperson told Insider. The spokesperson declined to tell Insider how the company decided who to invite.
Not enough zeros (Score:2)
Re:Not enough zeros (Score:5, Funny)
Should a 3 more between the 2 and the decimal point.
Amazon: $0.0002 per month? Done!
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Re: Not enough zeros (Score:3)
Needs $2/mo that bad....? (Score:2)
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I can make WAY more than that selling my blood plasma! It's nearly as effortless and a lot less intrusive!
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Donate at an approved sperm bank and get a $100 Amazon gift card!
Bonus two bucks (Score:2)
... for letting Amazon monitor your porn while you donate
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You do realize that liberal areas are doing better financially than conservative, right?
https://www.brookings.edu/blog... [brookings.edu]
With their output surging as a result of the big-city tilt of the decade’s “winner-take-most” economy, Democratic districts have seen their median household income soar in a decade—from $54,000 in 2008 to $61,000 in 2018. By contrast, the income level in Republican districts began slightly higher in 2008, but then declined from $55,000 to $53,000.
Underlying these changes have been eye-popping shifts in economic performance. Democratic-voting districts have seen their GDP per seat grow by a third since 2008, from $35.7 billion to $48.5 billion a seat, whereas Republican districts saw their output slightly decline from $33.2 billion to $32.6 billion.
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In the big liberal cities, the cost of living has skyrocket too....
I mean, in LA, small 1-2 bedroom cottage homes can be in the millions of dollars, whereas in TX, you can get a HUGE McMansion (I'm not a fan of them myself) for like $300K and less.
In those large cities everything costs much much more than in most republican cities....so, you gotta balance that out.
You can make $150-$175/yr in NYC and have to live pretty poorly, but if you make tha
Re:Needs $2/mo that bad....? (Score:4, Insightful)
Given the utter intensity that high tech has become literal advertising agencies, $2/month is peanuts. According to claims about how valuable seeing even a single ad is. I don't believe all their claims, and actual profits never seem to measure up to the market cap of the companies which means that hype is more important than actual long term feasibility. Amazon survived the first dot com crash because it had an actual business model, not dependent upon advertising and hype; so the fact that they're going down the route of becoming an advertiser implies that they really need that extra 0.05% revenue stream. Now that they do all their own delivery, and same day delivery, and trying to move up the streaming service ladder, they've got a lot more costs than they used to have and they're noticing it.
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Wow...anyone that needs $2/month THAT bad....really needs to do some serious vocational soul searching!!!
It's for those who want to brag about it being a "side hustle" as they post from their parents' couch.
Re:Not enough zeros (Score:4, Insightful)
Should a 3 more between the 2 and the decimal point.
You're obviously not the target demographic.
invite-only Ad Verification program
ie. Only the most idle, gullible, already-Amazon-addicted sector of the population.
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So Prime members then.
$2? Why, that's 2/3rds of a cup of coffee. (Score:2)
3/5ths if you get the Whole Foods Prime discount.
Re: $2? Why, that's 2/3rds of a cup of coffee. (Score:3)
Discount that gives you less.
uh huh (Score:2)
Considering how wealthy Google has gotten from knowing what I search for I'm inclined to believe that my data is worth a LOT more than that.
Re: uh huh (Score:2)
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Nope. I gave Google permission to view some of it. Amazon wants more of my data but also wants to pay less.
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Just compare the difference in price from the ad-supported streaming vs no-ad premium option. If that's accurately reflecting ad value, then $2/month is short changing us.
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Not illegal? (Score:2)
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Yeah that’s really the biggest problem in Brazil.
$2 (Score:4, Funny)
$2 is awful cheap to be a whore.
Re:$2 (Score:5, Funny)
Unless you enjoy it.
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I know nothing gets me hotter than more relevant ads.
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You gotta respect that.
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Hey, $2 is $2!
Nice to see some things are ignoring inflation, people's privacy is cheaper than ever before.
I wonder if I could lowball people down to $1 a year to have them implant a chip in their forehead that sends a livestream of everything they see to a permanent recording device.
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It'll buy enough tinfoil for two or three hats.
Seriously, why would people say no? It's $24/year free money with literally no impact on them.
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$2 is awful cheap to be a whore.
But that is already $2 higher than what Facebook offered for what they peek from your phone.
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Yep. Weak. How about 2 billion USD? ;)
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Speak for yourself. I will happily claim the $2, and install it on a burner phone that does nothing than stream pornhub all day.
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And just like with women and sex... (Score:2)
...look around. You can ask for more than $2, but understand that plenty of others are giving it away in bulk.
non-starter (Score:4, Interesting)
More and more I find myself trying to distance and de-couple from my smartphone. I avoid installing crapware with suspiciously-wide permissions. I run Pihole and a local ad-blocking browser (DDG browser on my phone, Ublock Origin on my Linux PC's Firefox). My truck is probably of the last generation of non-connected vehicles, and I plan to maintain it as long as possible. I hope for a renaissance of personal privacy as the masses start to wake up to the fact that not only their personal information, but their attention, and even their opinions are now market commodities. The insult of offering $2 a month to be spied upon will hopefully help at least some people realize this.
On the other hand, I fear the likely darkness around the corner is the use of chatbot type AI to purposely further polarize the sheeple into more predictable and profitable cohorts. Discernment, independent critical thought, and personal responsibility are some of the most effective weapons we have available on the new battlefield of our very minds.
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Invite only (Score:2)
By "invite only" I assume they mean this offer will only apply to the sector of the population where $2 spent will get them at least $20 back.
These cocksuckers (Score:2)
It's just never enough for them.
Never enough profits. Never enough subjugation. Never enough.
Fuck no. (Score:4, Funny)
Just that. Fuck no.
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I'll take them up on the offer (Score:2)
Get 1,000 old cellphones, leave them plugged in at home and running the Amazon crap but nothing else: second income!
Of course, my real cellphone that I use for real every day will never run this shit for any amount of money, and certainly not for a measly $2: that's so cheap it's insulting, because it either means people Amazon thinks people are idiots and don't know the value of their data in 2022, or it truly values their data at $24 / year. Either way, it's insulting.
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> Get 1,000 old cellphones, leave them plugged in at home and running the Amazon crap but nothing else: second income!
Probably one offer per Amazon account. Otherwise, yeah, I'd get the old handsets out. Probably not worth the effort or time to read the small print.
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Get 1,000 old cellphones, leave them plugged in at home and running the Amazon crap but nothing else: second income!
Think big.
Imagine running a bunch of phone emulators with their software... on some AWS instances. If you can cram enough virtual phones on an AWS server, perhaps you can exceed the monthly cost of that server, and you get Amazon to pay you for wasting their hardware.
Yes, yes, I know they won't let you have thousands of virtual phones, but the fantasy is fun.
LOL (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember when you had to " opt-in " to let Google, AT&T and the rest of them have access to your location data on your phone ?
Yet, magically, they somehow ended up with it anyway regardless of your decision to let them have it or not ?
( Not only did they end up with it, but they were selling it )
Yeah, I suspect this is like that.
You would be wise to assume all your data / traffic that goes across a smartphone is insecure and in someone elses hands already.
Apply that assumption every single time you do anything on your phone ( or even take it with you ).
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And by getting the user to agree to take payment for the user's data, they distance themselves from legal liability.
This is how ads should be required to work. (Score:2)
'Free phone on us' - oh really....
And this is why you fail. (Score:2)
Through the program, Amazon hopes to offer more personalized-ad experiences to customers that reflect what they have previously purchased, according to Amazon.
There's times where this might be helpful, like consumables. But when I spend half a year deciding on which $1700 guitar to buy, and finally pull the trigger? I really don't need to see that same guitar I already bought in my ads, exclusively, for the next two months. They already pulled that shit on me last year. Why would anyone want even *MORE* of that kind of targeted bullshit?
I know, some yahoo is gonna scream at me that they must know what they're doing because $money, but no. Really. How does that ty
#YeahNo! (Score:2)
Sorry. Even if they bought me the phone and was paying my bill, I wouldn't allow this.
Or pay them 2$ a month not to track me. (Score:1)
I'd pay 2$ a month for them to not track any of my data at all, and leave me anonymous except for what's required for purchases via credit card.
This is actually clever (Score:1)
Displayed != Saw (Score:2)
Amazon is tracking what ads participants saw
Not unless they're tracking the user's eyes and attention. Otherwise they're simply tracking what ads were displayed.
This is actuall positive: market for privacy (Score:3)
2 bucks? (Score:2)
To watch the encrypted traffic between me and my VPN?
Cool!
A mere pittance (Score:1)