
See That Billboard? It May See You, Too - etruong42
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/29/business/media/see-that-billboard-it-may-see-you-too.html?_r=0
======
dsmithatx
"has partnered with several companies, including AT&T, to track people’s
travel patterns and behaviors through their mobile phones."

Basically what I make of this is that cell phone companies (for sure AT&T)
have already agreed to sell Clear Channel your location data. Do they already
disseminate this information out to anyone who is willing to pay for it or is
this new?

Edit - I found they do and below are there are opt out links for different
cell providers.

[http://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-disable-data-tracking-on-
at...](http://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-disable-data-tracking-on-att-verizon-
sprint-t-mobile/)

~~~
giancarlostoro
Not useful in most cases but setting your phone to airplane mode helps too for
those who don't have opt-out links and aren't sure of this being in their
carrier.

~~~
sciurus
I don't see how disabling close to all the functionality of your phone is a
solution. Sure, they can't track me, but nobody can call me either.

~~~
WorldIsFucked
It's not a solution, but there you go.

Large wealthy entities are going to act like assholes, and guess what we
learned in kindergarten. All it takes is one fucking asshole to ruin a good
thing that used work for everyone.

Sorry, but running around with a uniquely identifiable radio badge is now
officially being used against you. It's not just about law enforcement using
this system against criminals anymore. It's about anyone with enough money,
exploiting every naive sucker minding their own business.

Welcome to the future.

~~~
themartorana
What's the cost-benefit ratio? Nothing exists completely altruistically. For
me, Google apps (Gmail etc.) provide enough benefit for the cost (of being
advertised to).

As much as selling my _location_ is infuriating, I'm not likely to give up my
pocket computer. The benefit to my life - instant maps and directions,
communications, and access to the wealth of the world's information at my
fingertips is enough of a benefit - for me, that is.

I hate that there has to be a cost that feels vicious, but it is what it is
right now. I do hope the privacy pendulum swings back a bit.

~~~
chflags
"I hate that there has to be a cost..."

Is there an assumption hidden in this statement? That the cost of map data
_must_ be sending personal information to Google? Why can't the cost be a
dollar value? What if it was? How much do you estimate it would be? Would you
pay it?

Could there be a company that could create maps and directions of the same or
better quality than the enormous, well-known one you mentioned? And could that
company charge actual currency for licensing the data? In fact I believe there
was such a company, until Google acquired them and their work became "Maps".

I also remember in the earlier days of the www getting directions without
sending personal information to Google, via sites like MapQuest. I also
remember map software that did not require internet connectivity.

"As much as [what Google chooses to do] is infuriating, I'm not likely to give
up my pocket computer..."

Is there another hidden assumption in this statement? That it would be
_impossible_ to build a pocket computer that can serve maps and directions
from a local data store, without an internet connection?

"...but it is what it is right now."

Right now, and forever more. Because there is only one "proper" way to do
things, and that's how they're being done now. Those are safe assumptions,
yes?

~~~
FilterSweep
> Why can't the cost be a dollar value? What if it was? How much do you
> estimate it would be? Would you pay it?

I live out this sentiment in my donations to Wikimedia whenever they start
bugging us for donations.

I do have a tangible "value added" from going to their site and using Wikis,
and thus I'm more than happy to shell out some sheckels for what they offer.

 _Unfortunately_ , the vast majority of people are simply not aware of the
implications of these "free" services they use (picture me doing the double
quote hand gesture when I say "free" here). I don't want to call them
_ignorant_ , as many have a general understanding that they are being data
mined, but they are unaware of the _implications_ of such, compared to your
average HN reader who often has been around big data, or handled it
themselves. (Read: "Nothing to hide" argument)

> Right now, and forever more. Because there is only one "proper" way to do
> things, and that's how they're being done now. Those are safe assumptions,
> yes?

THe bright side is that they are safe assumptions until people start waking up
and learning of ways to minimize (not completely remove) their "data
footprint" \- NoScript, Ghostery, uBlock, Disconnect, etc. etc.

Businesses will have to react, whether that's getting into the trenches (ie:
FuckAdBlock.js, force javascript), or considering a different monetization
approach.

And perhaps there is a niche market for a Non-Internet-Required "MapQuest"
style iOS/Android App, waiting to be struck ;).

------
typeiierror
I work peripherally in this industry, so I can provide more context to the
data used here; based on the press release[i], Clear Channel is using three
different types of data for this:

1) AT&T cell tower data. All major US carriers collect aggregate movement
data, and some have productized it (check out Grandata and Streetlight Data if
you're interested). They're likely providing something like a persons count by
daypart to Clear Channel at some geography, likely census block group. AT&T
likely provides course demographics as well (either by purchasing them from a
data broker like Experian or Epsilon) or by looking up the aggregate demo
characteristics reported by the US Census for the block group of the
subscribers household. As an aside, current gen (4G) cell tower data isn't
very precise - maybe 100m accuracy or worse.

2) Placed opt in GPS panel data. There are many market research companies that
pay consumer run location tracking apps (mFour and Instantly are other
examples). Placed is probably the biggest (~1mm panelists).

3) PlaceIQ mobile ad server GPS data. PlaceIQ, xAd, Factual, Verve, Ninth
Decimal...all of these companies read the lat / long coordinates provided by
mobile SSPs in mobile RTB bid stream to create location segment profiles
associated with your phone's Ad ID. The data isn't very accurate (mobile ad
fraud is a problem...an app change the GPS coord from rural Kansas to downtown
Manhattan to juice their CPM in an auction; also, most of the GPS used for
buying mobile inventory is via "LastKnownLocation" apis which are notoriously
inaccurate). These guys generally use their data to group your Ad ID into a
segment (if they see you at a Wendy's, they'll sell your Ad ID to mobile RTB
bidders as a "Frequent Wendy's eater"). Clear Channel is probably using this
to see if exposure to a billboard caused you to make a purchase that they can
attribute to your Ad ID (say via the advertisers CRM database), or to augment
the demo data from AT&T with demo segments they can buy from mobile data
exchanges.

[i]:
[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160229005959/en/Clea...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160229005959/en/Clear-
Channel-Outdoor-Americas-Launches-%E2%80%98RADAR%E2%80%99-%E2%80%93)

~~~
hackuser
> There are many market research companies that pay consumer run location
> tracking apps

Why do they pay consumers when so many apps collect that data for free?

~~~
typeiierror
A couple of reasons - data quality and usage restrictions are the top. Here's
an example - say I'm Big Box Retailer & Co and I want to measure how many
people who visit my store also visited my competitor, Small Box Retailer Inc.
Where can I go to buy that data?

-Facebook or Google don't sell their raw user data. They can tell me how effective the ads I placed on their sites were at driving visits or sales by matching my customer's email & phone numbers to their users (see [1] and [2]), but they won't give me data on my competitor, and the data will always be aggregated. So on to the next idea..

-Mobile ad server data aggregators might sell me their raw data, but the quality isn't great. Sure, they track 100m+ devices...but how many times do they see each of those devices a day? For most devices it's 10 times or less, so you're going to have a big problem with false negatives (people who visited Big Box Retailer and Small Box Retailer, but due to the sparsity of the data I miss one of those visits). On to the next...

-Foursquare is newly in the data business, but despite having a big audience (50m MAU), only ~1.3m users have opted in for continuous measurement ([3]). On top of that, Foursquare's audience is pretty skewed - if Big Box Retailer's customers are older, I'm going to have trouble finding them in Foursquare's data set, which means the effective size of their 1.3m 'panel' is really something like 200k-500k. On top of that, I can't survey them to verify they actually visited Small Box Retailer instead of the McDonalds next store, since the GPS data Foursquare pulls is LastKnown instead of exact.

-...so if the only data I can buy on the open market is skewed, not really that big (not to mention collected under potentially dubious privacy policies), whats my alternative? Thats the need these panels are filling.

As an aside, if you're curious what apps on your phone are collecting your
location data, you can use a self-hosted MITM server w/ SSL decryption to
sniff your own traffic. Here's own for Android:
[https://code.google.com/archive/p/sandrop/](https://code.google.com/archive/p/sandrop/)

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-touts-mobile-ad-
technolog...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-touts-mobile-ad-
technology-1432220552) [2] [http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-
gives-retaile...](http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-gives-
retailers-new-tool-gauge-sales-154524) [3]
[http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/22/attribution-by-
foursquare/](http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/22/attribution-by-foursquare/)

~~~
retbull
In addition to this people do things to their phones that make data useless
quite often. They turn off their gps, root the phone and change the clock so
they can cheat at games, use location spoofing apps so they can pretend to be
somewhere else on tinder. Then on top of that it can be hard to tell where
people are even with gps on because being in a building screws it up. There
are several solutions to that problem but nothing is perfect.

------
bsenftner
I worked on an outdoor advertising system with tracking cameras that watched
pedestrians as they passed, changing the billboard when various demographics
were identified in front of the display. This was back in the 2009-2010 time
frame. I was just consulting, and am pretty sure this company was purchased by
someone like Clear Channel soon after. I think journalists are late to this
one...

~~~
guelo
How did the camera identify the demographics? BTW this isn't using cameras,
it's using location tracking from the mobile phone companies.

~~~
timv
_Not the parent poster, but I also worked in the tech space of outdoor
advertising._

The camera based systems I saw used facial detection. The vendors were very
keen to refer to "detection" not "recognition" since they (supposedly) only
looked at faces and analysed them for demographic information, they didn't
track you as an individual. (I'm sure they would have eventually - there's too
much money at stake to _not_ track someone's movements and show them relevant
ads)

There's lots of vendors of facial detection software than claim to be able to
detect:

\- age

\- gender

\- ethnicity

\- mood (though that one's a bit suspect)

\- where your attention is focused

Most of the software does a decent enough job of most of those.

Some vendors would use the camera to track how many people watched the ad,
their age/gender breakdown, how long it held their attention, etc. In those
cases it was just about providing "performance" reporting to the advertiser.
Often they would have minimum audience guarantees, and would keep running the
ad until it hit its levels.

Others tried to target specific ads to specific demographics. They'd have a
bunch of ads loaded, and would pick which one to show based on the
demographics of current audience.

~~~
executesorder66
Can you post of a picture of one of these adverts with one of these cameras?

I'm wondering what's stopping people from just covering up the camera with
tape or something.

Edit: Never mind. I found one:
[http://static01.nyt.com/images/2008/05/31/business/31billboa...](http://static01.nyt.com/images/2008/05/31/business/31billboard-
span-600.jpg)

------
jbob2000
Somewhat related, but is there such a thing as "peak advertising"? Like, the
point at which there is so much advertising that there is no more space to
advertise on? Or we become so inundated by it that it ceases to have any
affect on us at all?

~~~
RickS
> so much advertising that there is no more space to advertise on

Facebook didn't buy Oculus because they wanted to take fruit ninja to the next
level...

~~~
djloche
They bought Oculus to continue to diversify their product offerings. Facebook
core will likely decline, but they'll still have Instagram, Whatsapp, Oculus,
etc. When you have a one trick pony, and the market hands you tens of billions
of dollars in exchange for a slice of your company, you buy other horses.

------
elorant
So you block ads on your phone and next thing you know they're tracking you
outdoors. Geez. We need some regulation pretty soon otherwise this whole
situation will get out of hand. What if someone hacks into that billboard and
routes the data elsewhere?

~~~
sixothree
Next I expect they will tracking license plates and spending enormous amounts
of money correlating those plates to actual people.

~~~
elorant
Or they could pay insurance companies to give them these correlations.

~~~
Absentinsomniac
Or even the police, who last I read do sell their plate data gathered from
their car cameras.

------
betterturkey
The attribution data story is really weird here.

So outdoor advertisers can potentially pixel customers who see an "impression"
like they do for online ads and track conversion behavior if they ultimately
walk into a store?

The article doesn't speak much to this, but what opt-in permission would a
user give to actually allow their location to constantly be relayed to
advertisers to make this possible? Would Target need to hide this in their T&C
of their app and then match it against the billboard's data on an advertiser-
by-advertiser basis...?

~~~
jacquesm
> So outdoor advertisers can potentially pixel customers who see an
> "impression" like they do for online ads and track conversion behavior if
> they ultimately walk into a store?

Yes, this is possible today.

------
stegosaurus
What I worry about with all of this is the massive loss in productivity. As
far as I'm concerned, there is a very clear externality here.

If I walk through a city center and I'm bombarded with unavoidable billboards,
it's just not good for my brain. I don't want it, it's pollution, poison. I
would love a real-life ad blocker for public transport, for example.

So what happens next? When do cities, local governments (London boroughs, say)
start to care? Do they ever start to care that commutes, everyday lives of
citizens are being destroyed (is there a clear enough causal link)?

Or do we have to wait until people like me start moving out of the city
because they don't want to see bollocks flashing lights everywhere, they don't
want to walk through a Minority Report like scene of pervasive unavoidable
attention grabbers?

~~~
chockZ
I think you're being a bit melodramatic. Outdoor advertising is not intrusive
or annoying at all when compared to other forms of advertising. It's not like
I'm trying to watch a video or read a news article on the side of a bus, on a
billboard or on top of a taxi.

Additionally, government transit organizations make money off of the
advertising sold on their vehicles and property which can in turn be used to
re-invest in infrastructure to benefit the average user. Things like digital
signage and free Wi-Fi are sponsored by the advertisements and improve the
various transit systems they are implemented in.

~~~
stegosaurus
'When compared to other forms of advertising' is a cop out in my view.

Those other forms are generally avoidable with either zero cost, or a
(debatable) net gain.

For example, one can simply choose to not watch broadcast TV, or read
newspapers, preferring instead ad-free sources (which are generally better in
my experience anyway).

I can't opt out of outdoor advertising without leaving employment
opportunities behind or moving away from family and friends.

So that makes the baseline zero against something.

We have Piccadilly Circus/Times Square style moving LED billboards popping up
in more and more places now with inane products on them. I don't want to look
at pointless consumerist nonsense all day, I want to see life, not capitalism.
If you think that's easy to just 'block' I suspect you're quite different to
me.

Taking the LU as an example: there are ads above and in front of your head at
all times, at stations (every minute) there are ads on the walls (which
sometimes move), the escalators have moving LCD screens with advertising on
them. Then you get outside and there's probably an advert in front of your
face (because the station is a heavily trafficked area).

TV is no comparison! That's 10 minutes completely ad-free with a break that
you can stand up and walk away from.

------
y04nn
The bad thing is that you're not aware that you're followed, and they don't
even bother to ask your permission. At the scale of a shopping center it may
be OK, but in your daily life it's frightening. ClearChannel has the power to
know you better than your best friend.

~~~
jbob2000
It only shows you what you give it. The only thing Amazon sends me offers
about are computer peripherals because that's all I've bought through them.
And Facebook only shows me travel ads because I only post details about my
vacations on there. And Google only shows me ads for web hosting because most
of my email is about website development.

None of these services know that I'm into hobby bonsai because I've never
given them that information. So if don't want to be followed and frightened by
them, then limit how you use them.

~~~
Abundnce10
I don't believe this 100% true, unless you use an effective ad blocker. Data
Management Platforms [0] (such as Krux, Bluekai, etc.) exist to keep track of
the different sites you visit so that they can place you into various audience
segments. It's unlikely they have a "bonsai" segment but you probably fall
into a "gardener" segment, as the sites you visit to read about bonsai trees
are most likely classified as a gardening website. Any site can signup with a
DMP and offer advertisers the ability to target specific users (i.e.
gardeners).

Advertisers are always looking for better ways to target a specific audience,
publishers are looking for ways to charge higher CPMs, and DMPs are helping
both achieve their goal while tracking you across numerous sites on the
internet.

[0] [http://digiday.com/platforms/what-is-a-dmp-data-
management-p...](http://digiday.com/platforms/what-is-a-dmp-data-management-
platform/)

------
tpowell
Looks like you can opt-out here:
[http://att.com/cmpchoice](http://att.com/cmpchoice)

"AT&T provides valuable insights to businesses without compromising consumer
privacy. AT&T Data Patterns does not share individual data – only counts. For
instance, a report might tell what percentage of passersby is males aged
20-30. Consumers are always able to opt-out of having their anonymous,
aggregated information used at att.com/cmpchoice."

~~~
dsmithatx
For others I found this page:

[http://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-disable-data-tracking-on-
at...](http://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-disable-data-tracking-on-att-verizon-
sprint-t-mobile/)

------
chinathrow
I've heard from german address/data brokers (Schober) that they send out
targeted mailings via email and then location pinpoint high value targets for
product/ad category X - then they visit these locations in persona and take
pictures of their houses and cars to add more data to the profiles.

What a sick world this has become.

------
DanBC
The UK Information Commissioner is keeping an eye on this kind of stuff.

[https://iconewsblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/how-shops-
can-u...](https://iconewsblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/how-shops-can-use-your-
phone-to-track-your-every-move/)

------
cfontes
They have tried this on Shopping malls and it was a disaster, people got
really pissed when this was found out.

I think it's inevitable but it's not nice to know it's happening.

------
ap22213
The thing is that location 'signatures' can be created from many types of
sensors, as long as they're able to record an environmental factor that is
discriminable on a position. It's not important that the signature is very
accurate in itself, only that enough independent signatures can be combined
together to make one accurate estimate.

------
jhanschoo
That reminds me of this device [1] in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen)

~~~
chopin
You (most likely) wear one right in your pocket. Telescreens are so '84.

------
dansorensen712
What an awesome and innovative project. I wish there were more techniques like
this.

------
steve_taylor
In Soviet Russia...

------
joesmo
"But, he added, the company was using the same data that mobile advertisers
have been using for years, and showing certain ads to a specific group of
consumers was not a new idea."

No, that's a lie. GPS data is not available by default and can be controlled
by the user. It's certainly not something that has been available for years to
advertisers. It sounds like despite any permissions you may refuse in your
OS/apps that AT&T will sell your data regardless (unless you opt out). Also, I
know it's the NYT, but there's no such thing as anonymizing data. This has
been shown over and over again that pretty much any data can be de-anonymized
rather easily.

------
chejazi
_Introducing AdBlock for Oculus. Keep distractions to a minimum when you
travel and blocking all_ __* _advertisements._

*Excludes Facebook Ads

