
Clear Channel’s billboards will start tracking consumers in Europe - JeanMarcS
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/10/21361734/clear-channel-billboards-privacy-ad-tracking-europe
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Joe8Bit
I did some work as a consultant for a big outdoor publisher and this has been
a problem they've been attempting to solve for a decade or more.

This kind of physical, outdoor advertising has been hemorrhaging dollars to
online ads for decades for several reasons but a big one is online having a
much better (but far from perfect) attribution story. Attribution is the big,
thorny problem in _all_ of advertising e.g. how do you know if Customer A saw
Ad B and that they then went on to buy Product C.

In my experience this type of tech has two goals:

The first is measuring distribution with aggregate data about how many people
saw the ad and when, then combining this with ethnographic data about the
location (e.g. what proportion of people in this area fall into income bracket
Y). This looks like "1,293 people have seen your ad in the last 60 minutes and
here some demographic information about them". This is done with video and
gait tracking, or radar/lidar for measuring volumes and people who 'engage'
with the ad by lookijng at it for >N $TIME.

This is all perfectly possible and scalable and is what ClearChannel are
currently doing, the product trick is to make it 'real-time' so advertisers
can adjust their buys and unit distribution more flexibly when combined with
digital signage (e.g. I'm going to move our ad from this unit in this location
to this other unit in this other location in 'real-time' as there's more high
net worth people there today). This also nicely ups outdoor spend (people use
it more, it appears more sticky) but they also charge more for these more
'dynamic' outdoor units. There's a bunch of seriously dubious data the the
publishers use to justify this new way of buying outdoor.

The second (and WAY worse one) is doing direct attribution (e.g. Did consumer
sKIFW3890 see ad sdoflij0934r and then did they buy product 029w3r29 from
merchant 203ei2-309ir). This has been the holy grail of outdoor for a decade
but no one's been able to make it work. ClearChannel very clearly WANT to do
it, which is creepy as all hell, but in my reading between the lines (and
working in the industry a little) I don't _think_ this is what their Radar
solution delivers, at the moment. I could be wrong, though.

~~~
sandworm101
>> (e.g. I'm going to move our ad from this unit in this location to this
other unit in this other location in 'real-time' as there's more high net
worth people there today).

That's not the goal. The goal is to turn outdoor billboards into online ad
bars. The goal is to micro-target whales, those with lots to spend and who are
most susceptible to ads. When such an individual walks down a street they will
see billboards targeting them specifically. Everyone will know when the latest
tech millionaire steps of the BART. All the billboards will switch from Honda
to Bugatii.

Personally, I'm not wealthy. But when I drive down the road I don't want to
see the same stupid ads I see online. (At work. At home I use adblockers and
never see ads.) None of the ads are relevant to me in any way. I am not
looking for a retirement home, nor am I having trouble with my colon. And I
definitely do not want to see incontinence products on every billboard.

~~~
Joe8Bit
It's easy to draw comparisons between online/digital units and outdoor, they
share a lot, but the fundamental difference is that digital/online is one-to-
one (one ad, one user, can be personalised) and outdoor is one to many. Right
now, there's no technology available that will change that. Some people think
if AR becomes ubiquitous it might, but that's still fantasyland.

Because of that, again right now, it's a misnomer that outdoor want to do the
Bladerunner style microtargeting of large outdoor display (the Bugatti example
you gave) simply because you make MUCH less money showing an ad to 100's of
people to target one person than showing a _better_ ad to the 100's. This is
because the outdoor market is still fundamentally based on CPM not CPA; that
_might_ change, but in my experience it's not likely.

~~~
sandworm101
I'm not so sure about those numbers. Putting something directly in Bill Gate's
eyeline is worth more than a thousand pleb eyeballs. If a billboard company
can say "For the next three seconds, Whale#3 is staring at billboard#67" they
can sell those seconds for many hundreds of dollars.

But I wouldn't limit it to the wealthy. Advertisers know that at particular
points in life _everyone_ become susceptible to ads. The young couple who just
discovered they are pregnant: big spending on new products asap. The junior
executive who just got a big promotion: new car time. The soldier who just got
leave: hotels. The guy who just inherited a house from a dead relative: estate
agents. I think most advertisers would forgo the attention of the regular
commuters if they can target the one individual on the train who is primed to
react to a specific type of ad.

My nightmare is the rise of so-called anti-ads, individually-targeted ads so
horrible that users will pay to make them not appear. There are ads on
television that cause people to change the channel. (The crying puppy ads, the
borderline-obscene erectile dysfunction stuff.) Now imagine you cannot escape.
That ad follows you around all day. How bad must it become before you will pay
to make it stop? Bladerunner wasn't _that_ bad.

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waihtis
So is the claim here that even though they dont know me at a personal level,
they know me as ”shopper_1092716718” and can target me whenever they want?

If so, another fantastic example of expensive and complex regulation being
gamed by the big players while the smaller entities are left with the cost.

~~~
INTPenis
In Oslo a while back there was a faulty billboard that started outputting all
its log data to its main screen.

It was essentially tracking everyone who passed it by characteristics like
gender, if they had glasses, where they were looking.

But yeah, every person was just an entry. There was no way for it to know who
that person was.

I wish I could find the story but my google-fu isn't helping.

~~~
whatok
[https://theoutline.com/post/1528/this-pizza-billboard-
used-f...](https://theoutline.com/post/1528/this-pizza-billboard-used-facial-
recognition-tech-to-show-women-ads-for-salad)

------
Renaud
It befuddles me to see that there so little pushback against the use of these
types of tech.

We can't trust advertisers to limit themselves. They are only limited by what
current technology can achieve but the goal posts keep moving and so is their
appetite for more intrusive ways to gather data.

There is a strong competitive incentive for them to build a system capable of
proving that a specific consumer seeing a specific ad ended up in a specific
sale. Imagine how much value that information could have to a company wanting
to sell its products! Near-guaranteed sales, ad expenses laser-targetted to
those who will actually buy! A boon for both advertisers and sellers!

Advertisers gather and cross-reference public information, credit information,
track people tastes, political affiliations, phone location, where they go,
what they look at... all to present consumers with hyper targeted adverts that
result in more sales. The more detailed and precise the data, the more
targeted the ad and the higher the chances of persuading a customer to part
with their money. Removing uncertainty is the goal.

I sincerely hope that these overreaching applications of what is basically
surveillance tech meet stronger resistance. Legal challenges are best, but
some old-fashioned 'guerilla' tactics may also be effective... I wouldn't be
sorry for companies like Clear Channel either way.

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eeNodoh6
Does anyone know what kind of data they get and how they get it? Is it through
bluetooth? Wifi? NFC? Something else?

That's obviously something I would want to "adblock".

~~~
elliekelly
It seems (in the US at least) they purchase the data directly from cellular
service providers: [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/02/29/468598100...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/02/29/468598100/using-billboards-company-will-collect-personal-
information-to-help-advertisers)

~~~
eeNodoh6
Thanks. So if they did something similar in EU, it means they must have such
deal with some providers.

I can't wait to have their names, I certainly will change provider if mine has
anything to do with that.

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holstvoogd
I hope everyone involved in that company spills their drinks and drops their
toast. buttered side down.

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rbecker
One more tool for corporations to better manipulate consumers will surely
improve the world, and not the opposite.

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gruez
So how exactly are they tracking people? wifi/bluetooth? facial/gait
recognition?

~~~
Tsiklon
A clear channel billboard (roughly phonebooth size) in my area of London has a
screen and a camera, it projects locally personalised ads for, among other
things, a popular lager beer saying it’s available at a bar 30-100m away. I
assume they’re all networked - and gathering literally all of the above.

------
JeanMarcS
From what I read in the Belgian post where I got this info [0], to be conform
to GDPR, they will only track with opt-in.

The trick is that opt-in will be in partners apps you will install on your
phone.

"L'entreprise insiste cependant sur le fait que les consommateurs doivent
donner leur autorisation pour permettre à Radar d'utiliser leurs données de
géo-localisation. Cela se fait en général via les conditions générales de
certaines applis." which roughly translate as

"The company insists on the fact that consumers have to give their
authorization to allow Radar to use geoloc datas. It will be done via CLUF of
some apps"

[0] [https://datanews.levif.be/ict/actualite/les-panneaux-
publici...](https://datanews.levif.be/ict/actualite/les-panneaux-
publicitaires-de-clear-channel-vont-tracer-les-passants-update/article-
news-1319057.html)

~~~
shostack
Isn't that explicitly prohibited by the GDPR?

~~~
JeanMarcS
Well, IANAL, but in GDPR if I recall Well, you have to list all the
subcontractors that will have access to personal data. If they are listed and
the user accept it in the middle of the 40 pages licence they are opting in.

Again, not a lawyer, but that’s how I interpret it. And there’s a good chance
they have good ones to prevent mistakes.

~~~
jdlshore
I’m not a lawyer, but I am my small company’s DPO, and I think you’ve
misunderstood.

The GDPR specifies six ways you can legally process personal data. Consent is
one of them. It must be explicit _for each usage_ , in plain language, opt-in,
and non-coerced. Non-coerced means you can’t require consent as a condition of
access.

So, no, consent buried in a 40-page T&C would not count.

~~~
JeanMarcS
Well, you must be right. I assumed it was what I wrote because the CEO said it
was how they gonna get consent.

Maybe missing details

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reedwolf
I remember something like this in the movie Minority Report (2002).

~~~
igravious
Funnily enough so must have Kim Lyons, the author of this piece, because five
paragraphs in we have:

“Remember that scene from Minority Report where Tom Cruise is on the lam, but
the billboards know what he likes?

[Embedded YouTube video: Minority Report - Personal Advertising in the Future]

We’re not quite there yet; the Radar-enabled billboards aren’t making spoken
sales pitches directly to customers. […]”

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maest
How does a billboard know which phones are passing it? Do smartphones just
randomly connect with nearby devices? Even if wifi and Bluetooth are off?

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rmrfstar
People. They will track people, not consumers.

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mschuster91
Am I the only one who is reminded of 2002's "Minority Report" here?!

That was supposed to be a dystopia, not an instruction.

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Dirlewanger
How is this company not dead yet?? Weren't they delisted from the NYSE?

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rich_sasha
This is awful. Where is my GDPR opt-out screen?

~~~
cinntaile
This probably doesn't collect GDPR protected data. If the billboard aggregates
the data to say that 30% of the people that passed by have an iPhone and the
other 70% have an Android phone then GDPR won't come into play here. Or that
40% of the people that went past the billboard are between the ages of 40 and
60 and so on.

~~~
coldcode
But what if you added facial recognition (for walkers) and license plate
readers (for drivers). Now you know exactly (assuming you have a good DB and
the recognition was perfect which is not the case today) who saw the
billboard. Now that's creepy.

~~~
simiones
Well, yes, but then they would run afoul of the GDPR, which may prevent this
from happening in the first place. But it can't prevent them collecting
aggregate stats.

