I had a similar experience once where a vendor demoed their tracking tech for advertising. This was in France (before GDPR) and they had partnered with many apps (Weather apps and such) to access user locations. I don't remember the size of their target but it was a big chunk of the French population.
They showed a map of Paris showing the day of a particular user from leaving their home, which route they took, how long they stood in front of which store and how long the spend inside others etc.
My boss at the time found the whole thing very exciting...
Mountain_Skies|1 year ago
Finally figured it out a day later when reviewing my hike on the Fitbit app. At the end of my hike I forgot to shutoff route tracking. On my way home, I had stopped by Walmart to grab a few things and while there, looked at their ladders. I could see on the app the path I took through the store, including when I stopped for a few minutes in front of the ladders. That was enough data to trigger ads for ladders for the next couple of days.
We leak data about ourselves constantly without realizing how much we're doing it or where it ends up going. Lots of it is also circumstantial and makes me wonder what erroneous ideas some of these databases might have accumulated over the years and who gets to see that "information". What happens if you walk through a part of town where there's an activist rally for "We Love Kitten Torture" going on? Do you forever get tagged in a bunch of databases as an animal torturer?
squigz|1 year ago