'The Future of AT&T Is An Ad-tracking Nightmare Hellworld' (theverge.com) 133
There's something scary in Fortune's new article about AT&T:
"Say you and your neighbor are both DirecTV customers and you're watching the same live program at the same time," says Brian Lesser, who oversees the vast data-crunching operation that supports this kind of advertising at AT&T. "We can now dynamically change the advertising. Maybe your neighbor's in the market for a vacation, so they get a vacation ad. You're in the market for a car, you get a car ad. If you're watching on your phone, and you're not at home, we can customize that and maybe you get an ad specific to a car retailer in that location."
Such targeting has caused privacy headaches for Yahoo, Google, and Facebook, of course. That's why AT&T requires that customers give permission for use of their data; like those other companies, it anonymizes that data and groups it into audiences -- for example, consumers likely to be shopping for a pickup truck -- rather than targeting specific individuals. Regardless of how you see a directed car ad, say, AT&T can then use geolocation data from your phone to see if you went to a dealership and possibly use data from the automaker to see if you signed up for a test-drive -- and then tell the automaker, "Here's the specific ROI on that advertising," says Lesser. AT&T claims marketers are paying four times the usual rate for that kind of advertising.
"This is a terrifying vision of permanent surveillance," argues the Verge (in an article shared by schwit1): In order to make this work, AT&T would have to:
- Own the video services you're watching so it can dynamically place targeted ads in your streams
- Collect and maintain a dataset of your personal information and interests so it can determine when it should target this car ad to you
- Know when you're watching something so it can actually target the ads
- Track your location using your phone and combine it with the ad-targeting data to see if you visit a dealership after you see the ads
- Collect even more data about you from the dealership to determine if you took a test-drive
- Do all of this tracking and data collection repeatedly and simultaneously for every ad you see
- Aggregate all of that data in some way for salespeople to show clients and justify a 4x premium over other kinds of advertising, including the already scary-targeted ads from Google and Facebook.
If this was a story about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, this scheme would cause a week-long outrage cycle...
AT&T can claim up and down that it's asked for permission to use customer information to do this, but there is simply no possible way the average customer has ever even read their AT&T contracts, let alone puzzled out that they're signing up to be permanently tracked and influenced by targeted media in this way.
Such targeting has caused privacy headaches for Yahoo, Google, and Facebook, of course. That's why AT&T requires that customers give permission for use of their data; like those other companies, it anonymizes that data and groups it into audiences -- for example, consumers likely to be shopping for a pickup truck -- rather than targeting specific individuals. Regardless of how you see a directed car ad, say, AT&T can then use geolocation data from your phone to see if you went to a dealership and possibly use data from the automaker to see if you signed up for a test-drive -- and then tell the automaker, "Here's the specific ROI on that advertising," says Lesser. AT&T claims marketers are paying four times the usual rate for that kind of advertising.
"This is a terrifying vision of permanent surveillance," argues the Verge (in an article shared by schwit1): In order to make this work, AT&T would have to:
- Own the video services you're watching so it can dynamically place targeted ads in your streams
- Collect and maintain a dataset of your personal information and interests so it can determine when it should target this car ad to you
- Know when you're watching something so it can actually target the ads
- Track your location using your phone and combine it with the ad-targeting data to see if you visit a dealership after you see the ads
- Collect even more data about you from the dealership to determine if you took a test-drive
- Do all of this tracking and data collection repeatedly and simultaneously for every ad you see
- Aggregate all of that data in some way for salespeople to show clients and justify a 4x premium over other kinds of advertising, including the already scary-targeted ads from Google and Facebook.
If this was a story about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, this scheme would cause a week-long outrage cycle...
AT&T can claim up and down that it's asked for permission to use customer information to do this, but there is simply no possible way the average customer has ever even read their AT&T contracts, let alone puzzled out that they're signing up to be permanently tracked and influenced by targeted media in this way.
Do not carry your phone everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
... and this is why i often go out without my phone.
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One of the best privacy things ever made was XPrivacy. Mainly because when an app wanted every permission under the sun, it would have full access to the camera, contacts, GPS, and so on... but all the data would be either randomly generated and bogus, or blank.
The ideal would be to run LineageOS with Magisk, so you can run stuff like Google Pay and other apps that didn't like dealing with root, as well as have access to things like Linux's firewall, so bad site IP addresses can be blocked at the kernel le
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Re: Alternative to this: (Score:2)
Will /. be as outraged by Firefox's data collectio (Score:2, Interesting)
Even if you don't bring your phone, or even if you take other precautions, stuff like your web browser may collect and transmit data about you.
Take Firefox's privacy policy, for example. [mozilla.org]
I suggest reading it if you haven't already. It's surprising how much user data Firefox collects and transmits.
It doesn't matter if the collection can be disabled, or if it's disclosed. Neither should magically make what Firefox is doing "acceptable" to a security conscious user.
I think that lots of people use Firefox thinki
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Interesting, thanks. I do not know how i escaped the "relevant content" suggestions. I use Firefox but none of their account, pocket, sync, etc.. services.
Re: Will /. be as outraged by Firefox's data colle (Score:2)
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Or just yank its battery out and put back it in when needed?
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Isn't airplane mode still trackable?
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Yes. GPS continues to function. it just delays when the phone uploads your movements.
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Another reason to have battery removed then. Annoying, but more privacy! :(
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Re: Do not carry your phone everywhere (Score:2)
Re: Do not carry your phone everywhere (Score:1)
My emergency-only cellphone has the ability to shut down altogether without any need to physically touch the battery, which results in extremely little power loss over weeks or months of sitting unused. I think virtually all lithium-ion cellphone batteries suffer from this sort of gradual power drain even if not connected to anything. Admittedly, restarting the cellphone takes about 80 seconds, but that's okay for a backup cellphone that I might use but once or twice a year..
Re: Do not carry your phone everywhere (Score:1)
How about carrying it but leaving it in airplane mode which shuts down all of the radios (except maybe GPS, but I keep that disabled most of the time).
It really sucks when you unexpectantly find yourself in a desperate or grave situation and you need to use a phone at that moment, and then you realise it's sitting at home now useless to you.
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Re: All this assumes anyone actually sees ads anym (Score:2)
Interesting.... (Score:4, Insightful)
"This is a terrifying vision of permanent surveillance," argues the Verge (in an article shared by schwit1): In order to make this work, AT&T would have to:
- Own the video services you're watching so it can dynamically place targeted ads in your streams
- Collect and maintain a dataset of your personal information and interests so it can determine when it should target this car ad to you
- Know when you're watching something so it can actually target the ads
- Track your location using your phone and combine it with the ad-targeting data to see if you visit a dealership after you see the ads
- Collect even more data about you from the dealership to determine if you took a test-drive
- Do all of this tracking and data collection repeatedly and simultaneously for every ad you see
- Aggregate all of that data in some way for salespeople to show clients and justify a 4x premium over other kinds of advertising, including the already scary-targeted ads from Google and Facebook.
....and people are getting hysterical about the 'posibility that Huawei might be helping the Chinese government spy on you.
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Sales data tracking from a corporation is quite different than a state-actor mandated campaign of corporate espionage and IP theft.
Don't be an apologist. You are smart enough to know the difference.
Apologist? Google AT&T, Facebook, Twitter, are spying on us and you expect me to worry about Huawei might be spying on us? And what makes thou think that Google AT&T, Facebook, Twitter, Cisco, etc. aren't helping the NSA spy on us and why should that concern me less that the fact that Huawei might be helping the Chinese government to spy on me? I don't see any significant difference between being spited on by the US or China, both of them have the same malicious intent.
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I don't see any significant difference between being spited on by the US or China, both of them have the same malicious intent.
Clearly your do. You defend one and whataboutism to the other, like all good facists.
Equating businesses from a country with lawfully mandated espionage and state actions from another. You know exactly what you are doing and you deserve a Strafgesetzbunch 86a trial because of it.
Firstly, you don't know what fascism is if you think that not liking corporations spying on you is fascism. Secondly, I can guarantee you that Google AT&T, Facebook, Twitter, etc. have more resources to spy on you, they do more of it, and they know orders of magnitude more about the intimate details of your life than the Chinese government ever will. So, remind me again, why should I worry more about the guys who might be spying on me than the guys who actually are spying on me?
@(&#TFY~{(@#FY*~_@!#R)FM{ (Score:1)
You seem to have forgotten the most dangerous part of this tracking. What happens when you vote differently to the board of AT&T, what are your employment chances at any corporation whose board vote the same as AT&T, how about employment in a government controlled by AT&T and it's corporate pals. How would this affect junk yard dog law enforcer activity, when you are flagged as a security risk by AT&T because you voted wrong.
People have yet to realise how bad, corrupt and purposeful this sh
Re: Interesting.... (Score:2)
But you are correct in that the *average* person has much more to fear from Google, Apple, FB, etc.
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What makes your "agreement" with AT&T (or Comcast or Verizon, etc) tenuous is because of the stupid government-mandated cable monopolies we suffer with. Even if you don't want to agree with AT&T doing this stuff, you often have no choice but to submit to their terms if you want to have Internet or TV service at all.
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Huawei invading your privacy is a problem because you didn't agree to it. AT&T doing this stuff is considered OK because you agreed to it.
I rather seriously doubt that most people really understand the full extent of what AT&T is doing when they sign one of their agreements. Furthermore, as I have pointed out before and will never tire of pointing out again, AT&T, Verizon, Facebook, Google, Twitter spy on you on a level that yields them orders of magnitude more information about your private life than the Chinese government can ever hope to acquire or is probably even interested in acquiring. The Chinese are after militarily, politica
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Companies based in the US are theoretically bound by US law, so there's at least some vague chance of restraining them through a democratic process. Large Chinese companies are proxy actors for a totalitarian regime, they do whatever they want.
Also, you might consider the moral implications of doing business with a country that is setting up actual, real-life concentration camps for an ethnic minority, when you're done playing Candy Crush on your Huawei smartphone.
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Digital Advertising is both more advanced than people imagine and more primitive. I have done most of this.
- Own the video services you're watching so it can dynamically place targeted ads in your streams (done)
- Collect and maintain a dataset of your personal information and interests so it can determine when it should target this car ad to you (done)
- Know when you're watching something so it can actually target the ads (done)
- Track your location using your phone and combine it with the ad-targeting data
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What nice things can't you have?
In small towns, you get "ad-tracked" all the time. The barber knows how you like your hair cut. The local bartender knows your favorite beer. It's a hell-scape I tell you! Hell!
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Not analogous. Your barber and bartender aren't actively keeping notes on how often you come in, how long you stay, who you chat with there and about what, ect... and then sell that data to anyone interested.
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....and people are getting hysterical about the 'posibility that Huawei might be helping the Chinese government spy on you.
There is quite a difference between a company wanting to see how ads perform, vs.a government looking for people with exploitable weaknesses to use for blackmail and espionage.
Cancelled AT&T (Score:3)
This is timely.
I cancelled my account with AT&T yesterday.
To switch to Google Fi.
Because Google don't track me right?
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There's surveillance [theverge.com], and then there's complicit [theguardian.com] surveillance [eff.org].
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Is there something about this site that attracts stupid people?
Humor isn't a big thing for you is it? That wasn't even remotely subtle.
Who watches ads these days anyway? (Score:2)
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Also older people.
Growing up in the 1970s-1980s, my family had the TV on all the time. This seemed to be true in most households I visited as a kid. And I notice it’s still how both my mom and my in-laws behave... go to their house and the TV is on from morning until evening, even if no one is sitting in front of it.
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My wife has stated that she uses it as background noise.
Customers may not have a choice (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if a customer does read all the fine print and realizes they are going to be tracked and have their privacy violated in this way, they may have no choice but to sign up with AT&T. For home internet, AT&T may be the only option (or the other options may be just as bad on privacy). Same with cellular service, home phone, pay TV and other products AT&T sells.
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They come up with the most awful, screw-the-consumer schemes, sometimes it's hard to believe the stock price has been so stagnant. (The dividends are pretty much the highest out there, though.)
Keep in mind (Score:2)
They don't have any technology to track and stop someone sending billions of robo calls.
We're 90% of the way there (Score:3)
It seems to me that we're 95% of the way there right now.
There's so much surveillance in place right now that I don't know why this hasn't already happened.
The capability of "smart" TVs will only get worse and worse in terms of tracking and reporting your viewing habits. Alexa and similar devices will bridge the gap until you won't be able to go to the bathroom without being heckled by an ad for a new brand of toilet paper. Your cellphone tracks you every moment unless it's turned off. Your streaming music and video services track everything you consume, as does nearly every website on the planet. Your car will soon be tattling on you, and license plate readers and credit card trails and smart watches mean that pretty much everything you do is logged somewhere.
Your privacy is, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent right now. It's getting harder and harder to do anything in any meaningful way that isn't being captured by someone somewhere.
The only hope that all of us become "jammers", as described in one of the episodes of The Prisoner (It's Your Funeral [wikipedia.org]). But, even if we started swamping the databases with loads of bogus data today, it's still probably too late.
It's enough to make one want to go live in a hut on an island.
If it was under user control it might not be bad (Score:1)
If I, as a consumer, wanted ads from a competitor, or was willing to pass my shopping behavior to multiple vendors by choice, it might give me more information to make a better deal.
Maybe I can leverage multiple vendors of the same or similar product who all know that I'm looking for a beer, and one nearby might say "Hey! Our happy hour has your favorite beer at a good price".
The "nightmare" is the involuntary tracking part - not the competitive behavior of consumers who want the information.
Who controls ou
"Hell on Earth" (Score:2)
Holy shit, targeted advertising??? What a nightmare hellworld!
Ahh, I see now! (Score:1)
This is why they keep trying to force me to "upgrade" my TiVO to a Genie.
Ads? (Score:4)
>"'The Future of AT&T"
>"We can now dynamically change the advertising"
What's an "ad"? Is that like a commercial? I remember those from 25 years ago, you know, before DVD, Bluray, TiVo, other DVRs, NetFlix, streaming. In whose "The Future" are ads? Do people really still tolerate those?
AT&T in The President's Analyst (Score:1)
Great (Score:3)
Meh, said it before, say it again (Score:2)
Not just for selling stuff... (Score:2)
I hope these stories inspire legislation (Score:2)
Like it is now (Score:1)
So it's like the current Internet: shop for bright green underwear, and you see ads for bright green underwear for 6 months.
Hello World (Score:2)
Am I the only one who read that as "helloworld" !?
Fuck that, and fuck AT&T (Score:2)
it's not about ads (Score:2)
Don't be fooled - this kind of dystopian surveillance is not about advertising. Online ads don't work. No one with a clue sees ads; no one at all clicks on them.
Surveillance is about surveillance. It's about selling our personal data to the gestapo. That's where all that "ad revenue" really comes from.
The only solution is political. Invasive surveillance must be made very illegal. Illegal at the federal, state, and local levels. And this must be achieved soon, while we still have at least the formal structu
Is it time to die yet? (Score:2)
Laws (Score:2)
I clicked on an ad with a pretty supermodel, though I don't buy women's clothing. Instantly 3/4 of other web sites were showing ads from this company.
I really don't want that on TV ads, too. It's bad enough I see it, now others see my ads too?
Why should the consumer care? (Score:2)
This can be defeated (Score:2)
If you've ever indulged a random interest in shipping containers, and googled it for fun, you know the advertising hell that unleashes. You will likely fins ads for shipping containers dominate your online activities - everywhere. Every time. Sometimes annoying.
So use thus to your advantage. Random searches that poison your profile give you meaningless, pointless, useless ads. You can tune tham out, even more completely than you do now, and use the time secure in the knowledge that you're not missing anythi