
Location-based ads are growing - tomcam
https://www.wsj.com/articles/your-location-data-is-being-soldoften-without-your-knowledge-1520168400
======
dsl
Location based ads are growing? All the singles waiting to meet me in My City,
CA will be happy to know that!

I remember working on a feature for an ad network in the early 2000s where
advertisers were demanding the ability to include the viewers city name in the
copy text.

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pbalau
A success story about location based ads: some time ago, my fat cat went on an
adventure. She is a house cat, never been outside. She managed to jump from
the 1st floor window (second floor for US peeps) and went wandering around the
back gardens. I could not find her that evening and there were some bad storms
coming in + a people told me there are foxes around.

I created a fb page about my missing cat and used my ads credits to promote
that page around the area I live. Second day after I did this, I got a phone
call from one of my neighbors that she saw the cat and that evening I had my
cat back home.

It turns out that my neighbor's daughter was visiting and saw the cat in their
backyard. Then she saw the ad on facebook and told her mother to call me.

~~~
strkek
Thank you, cases like this really make me want to disable uMatrix.

If there was a way to make all the ads actually display the kind of thing I
like, even if it's via some network-specific checkboxes or something like
that, I'd gladly disable uMatrix and any ad blocking.

But then I remember the ads with sounds, or the mining ads, or ads that don't
even have anything to do with the websites I visit nor the one I'm currently
in... no thanks.

~~~
pbalau
Like this?
[https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_s...](https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen)

~~~
strkek
I don't use Facebook but yes, from the url I think that's exactly the sort of
thing I want. I think Google lets you tailor their ads too, but these giants
are more like the exception.

Some websites use different ad networks, so _ideally_ I'd like something like
that but as a browser setting. For example some predefined list of topics (the
same way there's a list of TLDs), and making the browser send a header like
"Advertising: 1,20,6,78,9481" and then ad networks would adhere to those
categories.

Of course that's way too idealistic and there's no way something like that
will ever happen, but if people want me to disable my ad blocker, that's the
only way I'd agree to it. Otherwise is an instant "no".

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Yetanfou
Good that I have location switched off then... I never saw the need for any
website to know where I am at the moment I make a request. They can glean some
of it from the IP address but in that case they'd think I always post from
exactly the same location as all my traffic goes through a VPN.

~~~
zeta0134
I find it mildly creepy that if I log into Google Maps when I'm connected
through my usual VPN of choice, it still pinpoints my location. I know why of
course; it's figured it out from my Android phone in my pocket. Makes me
wonder what other apps are managing to track that data cross-network though,
and what they're doing with it.

~~~
mirimir
Huh? Google Maps on PC to Android? Are they using the same WiFi router? If so,
Google probably has that router's MAC address in its geolocation database. But
anyway, using VPN services on machines with WiFi is rather pointless, if you
want to keep your location private.

~~~
terminalcommand
Google does not only deduce your location from your connection. It keeps data
on you.

If for example you have some residual information (cookies etc.) on your
browser or you've logged in to your account, google will probably continue to
show your last location known by it.

Google might even query local devices as you suggested, who knows?

It is really aggresive on getting location data.

~~~
z3t4
It is really aggressive getting any kind of data.

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kaycebasques
A few months back I walked by a Steinway piano store, stopped for a few
moments to window shop, and went on my way, without ever mentioning anything
about pianos explicitly on a computer (like I'm doing now). A couple days
later, I got an ad in the mail offering a discount on a Steinway.

~~~
eli
I hear stories like this a lot in the context of "Facebook is listening to my
conversations through my phone microphone"

I think more likely is that we forget how many ads we're exposed to in a day.
The odds of occasional eerie coincidences is high.

~~~
dillondoyle
I completely agree in terms of people saying FB 'listens' as in records audio.

But one thing people often overlook with hyper-local geo ads are bluetooth
beacons which are tracked at most major retailers these days. Doesn't help
that Apple trying to help people use wireless headphones now likes to turn
bluetooth on every day (the lock screen bluetooth button defaults to 'off
until tomorrow')

~~~
FridgeSeal
Combined with the fact that, as of the most recent version of iOS, "turning
off" wifi or bluetooth in the quick menu just disconnects you from whatever
network or device you're connected to, it doesn't actually disable either
despite the visual indicators (and past behaviour) suggesting that they are
disabled.

unpaired bluetooth and unconnected wifi are gold for anyone wanting to track
you around a space.

~~~
supbitcoin
I don't get it, how would you identifity someone with their wifi turned on ?

~~~
John_KZ
If the WiFi is on, you broadcast your MAC, which is uniquely identifiable
unless you root your phone and install software to change this fact.

~~~
zaarn
IIRC current android and iOS devices will probe Wifi using a randomized MAC
and only use the real mac once connecting for realsies.

~~~
michaelt

      researchers found that "the overwhelming majority of
      Android devices are not implementing the available
      randomization capabilities built into the Android OS,"
      which makes such Android devices trivial to track.
      [...]
      Apple, meanwhile, introduced MAC address randomization in
      iOS 8, only to break it in iOS 10. [...] its network probe
      broadcasts to include a distinct Information Element (IE),
      data added to Wi-Fi management frames to extend the Wi-Fi
      protocol.
    

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/10/mac_address_randomi...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/10/mac_address_randomization/)

    
    
      four scholars from the US Naval Academy say they've
      managed to track 100% of all test smartphones, despite
      the devices using randomized MAC addresses. 
      [...]
      The novelty in our method is that we are sending RTS
      frames to IEEE 802.11 client devices, not APs, to
      extract a CTS response message which we derive the true
      global MAC address of that device.
    

[https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/researchers-b...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/researchers-
break-mac-address-randomization-and-track-100-percent-of-test-devices/)

------
rbcgerard
Why can’t Apple have sone sort of WiFi annonimization so I’m not broadcasting
a unique signal all the time?

~~~
cpeterso
iOS 8+ and Android 6+ devices do use a random MAC address for Wi-Fi scanning:

[https://blog.mojonetworks.com/ios8-mac-randomization-
analyze...](https://blog.mojonetworks.com/ios8-mac-randomization-analyzed/)

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/android-6-0-marshmal...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/android-6-0-marshmallow-
thoroughly-reviewed/5/)

~~~
rbcgerard
Apparently not very well

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/10/mac_address_randomi...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/10/mac_address_randomization/)

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jsemrau
Wasn't that the plan since iBeacons were introduced back in 2013? With GPS
probably even earlier? TBH, I never saw the business case and always thought
it's way to intrusive and a huge privacy issue.

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jhoechtl
... with the speed of search engine providers confining users into small
worlds. For certain areas of interest Google made the Internet the size of a
village.

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mirimir
If I had to carry a smartphone, I'd make sure that it had hardware switches
for camera, mike, WiFi and radio baseband.

~~~
robin_reala
I’m not sure that exists, unfortunately. Unless you want to build your own
with a Raspberry Pi and a USB radio module.

~~~
tpxl
It's in the works:
[https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/)

Relevant quote: _Hardware Kill Switches for Camera, Microphone, WiFi
/Bluetooth, and Baseband_

Disclosure: Not affiliated, but am interested in the phone.

~~~
mirimir
Yes, thanks. That's the one that I was thinking of. But I'd forgotten the
name.

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neonate
[https://outline.com/qTC6P5](https://outline.com/qTC6P5)

