I'm genuinely curious, how does it being a problem for them benefit you? (I'm assuming you're not saying that out of indifferent malice but because you have personal gains, which is normal.)
I think on the general principle of privacy. But also, the idea that the more trackable you are, the more easily manipulated you are by marketers and advertisers. Free markets work better the more consumers are rational. Giving marketers deep psychological and behavioral insight increasingly enables them to circumvent rationality and "hack" consumers in various ways.
Most people, if it explained to them, would be generally uncomfortable with the idea of their movements in a public place being so specifically logged.
How would you feel if every time you were in a store, an employee followed you around and took notes on your actions?
Why should I have my movements tracked in a store when I'm not using the resources offered by them? They should feel lucky to have me in their store and provide service, not Orwellian surveillance.
My other beef here is that this is just another way to further dumb down and make retail employment completely mindless.
it's a simple test: if data companies collect where clearly explained to the user, would the user approve or not?
"By entering this store, we will permanently record your location every 60 seconds. The main purpose of said data collection is attempting to stitch your actions on the internet to store visits to more effectively sell advertising. Further, we will sell this data to many companies, most of whom we don't directly interact with. Our privacy 'policy' will most likely never be audited, and the worst possible outcome of violations is a fine in the low millions of dollars. We will hand this information over to police and lawyers if they clear the high bar of, well, asking for it. The nsa doesn't bother asking."
For me it is mostly about the involuntary nature of it. I actually don't mind myself, but I do mind not having the ability to turn that tracking off (well, without manually disabling Wifi all the time anyway) or in any way control or affect the profile it generates.
Interesting to compare to Google who tracks customers around the internet. Crucially, if you don't log in to a Google account you are only one 'clear cookies' away from erasing your profile (I wonder occasionally if Google reconstructs profiles across different cookie sessions or not ...). At least on that side, you have some control. You can't change your MAC address nearly so easily.
shurcooL|11 years ago
Can you please elaborate on your point?
_greim_|11 years ago
colechristensen|11 years ago
How would you feel if every time you were in a store, an employee followed you around and took notes on your actions?
Spooky23|11 years ago
My other beef here is that this is just another way to further dumb down and make retail employment completely mindless.
x0x0|11 years ago
"By entering this store, we will permanently record your location every 60 seconds. The main purpose of said data collection is attempting to stitch your actions on the internet to store visits to more effectively sell advertising. Further, we will sell this data to many companies, most of whom we don't directly interact with. Our privacy 'policy' will most likely never be audited, and the worst possible outcome of violations is a fine in the low millions of dollars. We will hand this information over to police and lawyers if they clear the high bar of, well, asking for it. The nsa doesn't bother asking."
What do you think people would choose?
zmmmmm|11 years ago
Interesting to compare to Google who tracks customers around the internet. Crucially, if you don't log in to a Google account you are only one 'clear cookies' away from erasing your profile (I wonder occasionally if Google reconstructs profiles across different cookie sessions or not ...). At least on that side, you have some control. You can't change your MAC address nearly so easily.