
Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores - Jerry2
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-ads-tracking-20170523-story.html
======
gub09
This is probably an unusual opinion, but for me privacy is similar to freedom.
Freedom is usually defined as a negative: people are free of oppression, have
freedom of speech (freedom from speech being constrained), freedom of movement
(not forced to stay in one place), religious freedom (freedom to believe what
one will and not be limited in practice or assembly), etc.

Privacy is the freedom from being watched, from having one's movements and
actions and consumption and words observed, tabulated and stored. I hope that
one day whether by laws or technological solutions, privacy will again be the
norm in our lives.

~~~
adjkant
I think it's important to note the definition of privacy you use is important.

For me, in my daily life, all of this is completely "private". Google having
my data in mass and an identity profile on me that no human will ever
specifically look at is just as good as private to me. The fact that computers
will be handing this data, not other humans, is an important distinction for
me. No human will ever see my individual data in all likelihood.

I don't think the lack of privacy is a problem, but rather the centralized
power. It's really tough right now with so much power in information, but the
only real information power coming in volume.

~~~
pdkl95
> the definition of privacy you use is important

Yes, it is. Defining privacy to mean the very opposite of "private" is pure
doublethink/newspeak.

> Google having my data

You're not giving your data _only_ to google. You're also giving it to anybody
that hacks Google's servers to take their data at any point in the future (and
anybody that buys it from the hackers), and any government (or other entity
with sufficient power or influence) that orders (legally or illegally) Google
to turn over their data, _and_ anybody that Google might sell the data to
should they have unfortunate financial troubles. This list will probably grow
as the value of data grows and creative new ways to exploit data are
discovered.

I commend Google for taking security seriously. You data is probably saver
with them than than many business. However, they are still human so they make
mistakes. Hacks will happen even with the very best well-funded security teams
using impossibly good practices. When governments are involved, it may not
even be Google's choice.

You need to remember that data doesn't go away, so the risk of who it may
spread to only increases with time.

> other humans

Humans don't need to see your data for it to harm you. Your insurance company
doesn't need a _human_ to feed data from Google (or whomever) (possibly
blinded through some sort of "rating service"?) through the machine learning
and/or "risk assessment" heuristic _du jour_ to raise your rates or deny
coverage.

> centralized power

Pretending the world is just[1] - that your data will somehow be limited to
_only_ Google - gives Google a _lot_ of power, that will be hard to reclaim.
If by some miracle they are able to do better than most people throughout
history that acquire power and only use their power for benevolent reasons,
the same cannot be said indefinitely into the future.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-
world_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis)

~~~
bingojess
I agree with what you are saying but given the probabilities (I don't see the
big 5 having a significant data breach any time soon) it is something I'm
willing to trade off or sacrifice so to speak. I guess the ideal scenario
would be that all corporation and the government does not store my data, even
anonymously. But this is unrealistic and I haven't bothered looking for
alternatives that are safer/have more privacy.

Focusing on unlikely events is inefficient in that the preparations or
measures taken against them often are not worth the expected benefit. Pointing
out that there is always risk of improbable events is not always useful
especially when mitigating these risks is costly. We increase the chances of
being hit by a car when we leave the house or when we jaywalk.

Personally for me, the benefits from using services provided by Google or any
other company outweigh the risks of my information falling into the wrong
hands. The worst that I can hypothesize would be a political opponent using
some data to pin a crime on me and throw me in jail. Or maybe some of this
data could lead to me losing my job. Both unlikely scenarios. I am fortunate
however because I live in a country where politicians are less likely to abuse
their power (still a possibility of course) and I am not a political dissident
nor a criminal. The same can't be said for everyone, so for people where the
risks are far greater, they take extra precautions because it is worth it for
them.

~~~
hedora
I emphatically opt out of all of Google's services and tracking. I have done
everything I can to avoid having them track me, short of quitting my job (we
use google apps at work...).

When you (I think, naively) traded your privacy and freedom for their
services, you also traded a bit of my privacy and freedom, and that is
unacceptable to me.

The same can be said about any of the other big surveillance capitalism
companies (facebook, microsoft, etc).

I don't know why you think they will only hypothetically use this information
against you. You are bombarded with machine generated attempts at
psychological manipulation on a daily basis, and your private information is
regularly leaked/sold to bad actors and out of control law enforcement
agencies on a continuous basis.

You even say you are lucky you are not a political dissident, so you admit
that, in your own mind, you have given up the right to participate in our
democracy as you see fit.

~~~
bingojess
I opt out when when it's convenient (ie. located in the settings I don't dig
further than that) I deleted by FB.

I value it different and am fully rational in what I have done. Psychological
manipulation? You mean ads and recommended youtube videos? If you could
elaborate, this would interest me.

With regards to bad actors and overreaching LE, I really haven't felt the
negatives to warrant changing my behaviour.

I have no idea what you mean giving up participating in democracy. How does
choosing not to be a dissident mean I have given up the right to participate
in the democratic process? I'm not American by the way. I'm in a country where
I have my vote and I can speak up against my government without repercussion.
If I were in an authoritarian one I'd be much more concerned.

~~~
skummetmaelk
Political changes can happen very quickly. Countries can go from free
democracies to authoritarian dictatorships in 20-30 years. You cannot know
what the world, and your country, will look like in 50 years. Being okay with
giving companies ammunition against you is the same as making bad decisions
like driving without a seatbelt because "I'm a good driver and I will never
crash".

------
russell_h
A Googler gave a talk at Real World Crypto in January describing a system that
might back this. The relevant part of the talk starts around the 10 minute
mark:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee7oRsDnNNc&t=10m1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee7oRsDnNNc&t=10m1s)

In short, they're able to compute the intersection of the set of users who
have viewed an ad with the set of people who purchased a product in a store,
without either party disclosing their side of the set.

~~~
singron
After studying the slides, it looks like they do a Diffie Hellman-like
exchange of user identifiers.

g_i = Google's identifier for customer i. s_j = Merchant identifer for
customer j.

If g_i == s_j then customer i == j. These identifiers might be phone numbers
or email addresses or other identifiers that both parties have.

Neither party wants the other to learn any identifiers it doesn't already
known about.

So Google picks a random secret value G and sends g_i^G to the Merchant. The
Merchant picks random secret value T and sends g_i^(G* T) back to Google.
Additionally the merchant sends s_j^T to Google.

Then Google calculates s_j^(T* G). If s_j^(T* G) == g_i^(G* T) then s_j == g_i
and i == j. So know Google knows the exact set of their users who purchased
something at the Merchant.

Additionally, for each s_j^(T), the Merchant sends a homomorphically encrypted
value for the amount they spent. Then Google can perform a homomorphic
addition on these encrypted values of only the intersection it calculated. The
Merchant can then decrypt it to get the total sum and share it back to Google.

So in the scheme I described

1) Google still learns who is purchasing at which merchant. 2) Google does not
learn individual amounts. 3) Merchants can't perform the same calculation to
learn which users saw their ads unless Google sends s_j^(T* G) back to them
(not pictured in the slides).

~~~
hammock
It's not a new and a very common process. A personal identifying variable is
calculated in the same way on both sides (usually by a third party), then
hashed. Hashed values are then compared/matched.

~~~
singron
What makes you think they are just comparing hashes and not this diffie
hellman algorithm that they say they have been using?

~~~
hammock
No idea how Google is doing it. Was referring to how others have been doing it
for years.

------
vmarsy
The European Union is often made fun of with "the Americans innovate, the EU
regulates", but in the meantime GDPR[1] is coming into force in 2018

> The primary objectives of the GDPR are to give citizens and residents back
> control of their personal data

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regu...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation)

~~~
hueving
Doesn't this fall squarely into "the Americans innovate, the EU regulates"?

Whether that saying is derogatory or not obviously depends on your point of
view, but this new regulation isn't contradictory to the saying.

~~~
omginternets
The point was that it's usually said in a derogatory fashion, insinuating that
European innovation suffers as a result of this.

~~~
LamaOfRuin
Those also aren't strictly tied together. I absolutely believe that EU's
internet regulations make it less desirable to start interesting new internet
companies there. In many cases, I would also gladly trade that for the
benefits of being an individual living under such a system.

~~~
omginternets
Indeed, but again the point is that it's usually _said_ , so as to imply that
the EU suffers from these policies.

Whether or not that's actually the case is a different question. To your
point, it's a much less cut-and-dry question as well.

------
thinkling
FTA: "Google says it has access to roughly 70% of U.S. credit and debit card
transactions through partnerships with companies that track that data."

Wow.

~~~
AznHisoka
MasterCard and Visa not only make money from each credit card transaction but
to add insult to injury, they make money selling that transaction data as
well! That's what I call a ludicrous business.

~~~
speedplane
I've heard that this is not a very big business for Visa/Mastercard. That's
because the credit card processors don't get many details on the purchase,
they just know the amount, the user, and the bank they are sending the money
to.

~~~
hyperbovine
My bank seems to know the origin and destination of all the plane tickets I
buy (for example), so presumably the CC processor has this sort of information
as well? I'm sure someone reading this is in the industry and can explain.

~~~
rcar
Plane tickets have an odd setup in CC processing systems where it actually
shows origin/destination in the transaction information itself. The only other
similar example I've seen has been in payment processors like Square or Paypal
where they'll include both that it was a Paypal transaction and some
customizable string showing the merchant who actually received the payment.

Other than those sorts of situations though, Visa/MC or the bank issuing the
cards only know where the transaction occurred and how much it was and don't
directly get SKU-level data on what was purchased barring some other sort of
partnership with the merchant.

------
thephyber
I was under the impression that Google already did this.

A Googler already described this to me years ago as "closing the loop", where
Google's ad network already exposed a customer to a brand/product, but Google
only gets credit for the conversion if it happens in the same browser session
online. By tying together stats between impression and conversion (purchase,
even in-store), the ad network becomes more valuable -- or less, if there was
already an assumption of this effect with previously overestimated results.

~~~
jforman
Lots of companies have been improving attribution online. Offline is quite a
different beast.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I remember reading an article a few years ago about Facebook doing this. It's
also why some merchants will ask for your phone number, even if you pay in
cash. With your phone number, the merchant can identify you. In Facebook's
case, they know what ads they show you online, then they can tie any
subsequent purchases tagged with your phone number back to your FB account.

~~~
wavefunction
Sounds like another company claiming credit for something it didn't actually
do.

facebook showed me ChristianMingle ads for years despite marking myself as
agnostic. I have a fair amount of experience with the Ad-words network and all
I can see of facebook's ad network and target is that it sucks. I've never
seen any place I've worked have much success deriving any meaningful value
from facebook ads.

~~~
omarchowdhury
What if ChristianMingle was OK with attracting agnostic to their site? I mean,
you don't have to be Christian to want a partner and agnostic can also be
synonymous with open.

------
tdeck
My former employer Square (generally a great company) has been doing a similar
thing for a while, in partnership with Facebook [1].

[1]: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/14/facebook-
knows/](https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/14/facebook-knows/)

------
syphilis2
I'm interested to read about where people believe this progression of
technology will take us in the near and far future. Are there thought out
considerations of what type of world we are heading towards? Has Google
revealed their vision of advertising for 2032? I don't mean this rhetorically,
I genuinely want to know what vision there is for advertising in the future
because I believe it's something we really ought to be thinking about and
judging so we can make informed decision about what's best for us.

~~~
wiz21c
I love this question too. I think we're heading for a full blown "société de
contrôle" (see Wikipedia). So the locus of power is changing. Before it was
repression, now it is control. It's not inhernetly good or bad. But my gut
feelings says that we're transtionning to that society. And while we're
transitionning, the first movers, the fastest movers (Google, FaceBook, etc)
have an advantage and therefore may look dangerous to us. So in complement to
your question I'd like to hear about what are the forces that are here to
balance the powers.

~~~
jansho
> what are the forces that are here to balance the powers.

Well there's no chance of a David vs Goliath so the only one I can think of is
_governments._ Yeah...

~~~
wiz21c
Yep, I know that but somehow, at my age (and I'd say even at a younger age),
one must think that change does exist and that change is for the better. So
maybe there's a David somewhere... Right now I'm thinking about the Pirate
Party, but I have no ideas of what they're doing...

------
paradite
Now I will have to seriously consider getting off the Google ecosystem now.
Deactivating facebook was okay, but Google might be tricky considering many of
website accounts use Google authentication.

~~~
adjkant
Okay, this is a small rant that is not directly aimed at you, so nothing
personal. This is aimed generally more at people in the privacy at all costs
camp and the like. If there's some viewpoint I'm missing here I'd also love to
hear it, so it's not really a mean-spirited rant either.

Google owns the internet at this point. For general use purposes, they ARE the
internet. So avoiding them should really have at least SOME effect before it's
even seriously considered.

What does getting off Google do?

It doesn't hurt them, as there's no way a significant number of people will
take action, at least in the near future.

So, then it must be done for you. By not being in these services and having
all this data collected on you, what do you actually gain? Likely, nothing at
all. You won't be able to be tracked down as easily if Google turns evil,
sure. If their data is breached in a meaningful way, sure again. But, for both
of these, emphasis on "as easily". At this point, if you're looking to
maliciously track down just about anyone, it's not hard at all. You'd have to
go fully off the grid to get this. And in that scenario, what do you gain
again? We follow down the same road of "I only gain something in very unlikely
scenarios" again.

So to me, the only way this type of perspective makes sense is if you believe
those very unlikely scenarios (from my view) are much more likely. And if they
are, we're all fucked already, and being one of the few to be off the grid
probably won't matter in the end.

Basically, at this point, you've already given yourself to Google. Rather than
decide whether or not to trust them, I think putting more effort into trying
to influence them towards "not being evil", as they say, is much more of a
realistic move for someone with concerns over data, privacy, power/security of
all this, etc.

Am I missing something?

PS: I understand Facebook - for some, there are no significant benefits you
give up. For most, you're going to give up a lot more with Google.

~~~
__david__
I don't know, I think it's easier than you make it out to be. I don't use
gmail, I have Duck Duck Go as my main search engine, I don't log into Google
in my main browser. I just don't use anything on a regular basis that needs a
google login. When I do, I open Chrome and log in there, so it doesn't taint
my main browser. It hasn't affected my life or my career negatively (or at
all, really).

~~~
adjkant
That's a fair answer, and I'm sure one that many share. Thanks for addressing
the question directly - I see how for a minority of users, the switch makes
sense.

I guess for me, I don't care enough to make all those changes. As a Chrome
user, the sync across things is nice, and I enjoy the interface. I'll take the
ease at risk of someone having my data in a catastrophic situation. Obviously,
your choice makes great sense for you.

~~~
khn1
> I guess for me, I don't care enough to make all those changes.

Up until I read this article, I used to feel the opposite way. I think there
is some value in everyone having privacy and personal space. It gives us an
opportunity to decompress and relieve some of the stresses of our increasingly
connected world.

However, discovering that Google (and others) are merging my online and
offline behavior is making me doubt my viewpoint (the 70% figure really hit
hard). If I can't escape it, why not just be apart of it? Surely life is a bit
simpler: not having to pay for email, better search results (DDG vs Google)...
It seems that whether you want to or not, you _will_ become part of the
google/facebook/etc ecosystem.

The other reason I used non-google services was in some ways to "hedge" my
position. By using a non-google email with a custom domain, I am not tied down
to any email provider (note: I bought the domain explicitly for email use). If
I ever became unsatisfied with my email service, I could always switch to a
different provider without the hassle of creating a new email address. Now,
maybe this is just a defeatist view, but I think google/facebook are too big
to fail. If google disappeared tomorrow or in 10 years, there would be chaos
-too much of the world depends on it. Does this give them enough power to
exist in perpetuity? Maybe it's time to just cave in and use all google
services. It sure is cheaper.

~~~
adjkant
> "I think there is some value in everyone having privacy and personal space."

I never got how Google having my data as part of a larger picture ever
affected either of those in my daily life. They use it for power in mass, not
over individuals. It's an important political conversation, but it's doing
everything but affecting me specifically/individually in my daily life (in
negative ways at least)

Edit: Just wanted to say I appreciated the comment. As far as too big to fail
goes, I don't think Facebook is yet - they are fighting hard to become that
right now though. You can easily function without Facebook - right now it's
basically only serving as an address book and messaging service for me, and I
have good alternatives for both of those. Google's integration into everything
is what makes them too big to fail. I've given up on fighting Google, but I'm
still careful to some extent with Facebook.

------
hackuser
There are anonymized credit card services, including pre-paid and other
solutions. The following is based on notes at least a year old, and I haven't
tried them:

* Abine

* Final [https://getfinal.com/](https://getfinal.com/)

* Privacy Inc. [https://privacy.com/](https://privacy.com/)

Also, many pre-paid cards require the user to identify themselves before the
card is activated

~~~
tyingq
I didn't downvote, but some of those only help so much. Your name is still in
the track data, and for credit you generally have to input a zip code. For
online purchases, you're entering an address as well.

~~~
taneq
Yes, but even if a panopticon could theoretically piece your entire history
back together, using multiple companies to keep the silos separate is one way
to reduce the ease with which this can be done.

That's why it's such a big deal when companies sell your info. Merging silos
dramatically increases the amount that can be inferred from each piece of
information.

------
evolve2k
> The new tracking system was created in consultation with “incredibly smart
> people” to ensure it's not invasive. He described the program as “secure and
> privacy safe.”

It's not "incredibly smart people" you need; it's "highly _ethical_ people".

~~~
hagakure0c
Sooner or later people will start to revolt and either go back to use semi-
anonymous cash or truly anonymous payment systems like bitcoin. Google and
advertising will then be in the dark.

~~~
tintor
Bitcoin is not "truly anonymous" by default. All transactions are public and
can be traced back to you, unless you use non-logging bitcoin mixers for every
single transaction.

~~~
mirimir
No, you just mix a bunch, and then use them. But you must use VPNs and/or Tor,
to avoid linkage by IP address. If you want compartmentalization, just mix
into separate wallets. And if you want strong compartmentalization, do
everything via Tor, and put those wallets in separate VMs (such as Whonix).

~~~
hvidgaard
Indeed, Bitcoin _can_ be anonymous if there is enough critical mass. But that
requires far more involment than the average person is willing to do. Cash is
easy and simple.

------
AdamN
Are there concrete recommendations for being able to use a credit card (i.e.
for an airline purchase where cash is tough) and maintain maximum privacy? I
know Apple Pay helps vis-a-vis the merchant since the CC number is hidden. Are
Visa, AMEX, MC different at all? Are there banks that have better privacy
policies or does it not matter since the bank is just handling the final money
transfer?

~~~
nicholasjarnold
I use a service called Privacy.com which is quite convenient for certain types
of transactions or when dealing with certain merchants. Check their privacy
policy: [https://privacy.com/terms#privacy-
policy](https://privacy.com/terms#privacy-policy)

The one thing that stands out to me is this line: "Privacy.com does not
disclose personal data to third parties for direct marketing purposes."

I am suspicious that the addition of the word 'direct' in that sentence might
be significant. I'd love to hear of other similar services.

------
azinman2
"The kinds of data that Google is collecting also could become an inviting
target for hackers, said Miro Copic, a marketing professor at San Diego State
University"

As if Google wasn't already a target already?!

------
kyrra
It's worth seeing the information from the source. The talk[0] and the blog
post[1]. Plus, as Engadget called out[2] in an update, you can opt-out by
contacting your credit card company, and there are more details at the FTC[3].

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmkRJqnQ2T8&19m05s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmkRJqnQ2T8&19m05s)

[1] [https://adwords.googleblog.com/2017/05/powering-ads-and-
anal...](https://adwords.googleblog.com/2017/05/powering-ads-and-analytics-
innovations.html)

[2] [https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/23/google-track-shopping-
tr...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/23/google-track-shopping-trips-ads/)

[3] [https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0222-privacy-
choices-y...](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0222-privacy-choices-your-
personal-financial-information)

------
JosephLark
Not Google specific, but some good reading on this topic came out in January -
The Aisles Have Eyes: How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy,
and Define Your Power [0]

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Aisles-Have-Eyes-Retailers-
Shopping/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Aisles-Have-Eyes-Retailers-
Shopping/dp/0300212194/)

------
talamown
Amazon already has been doing this as well.

They started to recommend some items related with books I have never bought
online, just after I got them at local bookstore by credit card.

~~~
Graphon1
Isn't there a difference? Google is sharing that offline purchase insight with
advertising clients, rather than simply using that data itself, as does
Amazon.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Where the advertising client is the local bookstore that he purchased the book
from.

------
awinter-py
I think everyone remembers the first ad to follow them around multiple
websites. For me it was an ASPCA campaign.

The next version of that experience will be researching a purchase and where
to get it, then seeing ads on the way that are customized to (a) the product
you're buying and (b) your preferences.

If you're 55 you'll get michael jordan advising you to buy nikes. If you're 35
it will be Noel Gallagher (air noels?), and if you're 10 it will be the ninja
turtles.

The good news is at a certain point the competition for eyeballs will become
so fierce that the ads become honest & informative.

~~~
pnut
If ads were going to become honest and informative, it would have happened
already. A sale from a lie is equal in value to a sale from the truth.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _A sale from a lie is equal in value to a sale from the truth._

And a sale from a lie is also _cheaper to achieve_ than a sale from the truth.
So even if your ads are always 100% honest, if your competitor starts lying,
you're forced to either do the same, or risk going out of business. This is
how the market optimizes human values away as inefficiencies.

------
birracerveza
Where I live we have laws in place that criminalize stalking. Why isn't this
considered stalking?

~~~
a_imho
Maybe you implicitly agree to their ToS when you enter a partner store? It's a
technical detail of creative lawyering. They must have covered the legal
aspects and factored in the fines in case they get a slap on the wrist.

I guess it is the same thin line you have between tax evasion and tax
optimization and Google has a nearly unlimited budget to try to move this line
in their favor.

~~~
birracerveza
But it's not like agreeing to a ToS allows you to do illegal things, stalking
being one of them. And yes, the definition keeps fitting more and more
Google's tracking methods.

I know that I sound dramatic, but all of these kind of things that we have let
Google do would be considered HIGHLY illegal if instead of a company it was a
single, private individual.

~~~
a_imho
Not dramatic at all, it _is_ stalking, it _is_ unethical but defining illegal
is very complicated and up to the elected bodies.

Powerful entities should not be above the law but in practice they are, no
point denying that. I'm sure everyone has an explanation according to taste
how come double standards can be the normal.

------
dredmorbius
Earlier, on HN:

Report warns computers may threaten constitutional rights (1982)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14329877](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14329877)

------
yuhong
Thinking about it, the entire US economy has been about increasing consumption
and credit since the 1970s.

------
synaesthesisx
There are certain products that people are more likely to buy in-store than
online (clothing etc) but may be exposed to/advertised to online. I've always
wondered how retailers track offline conversions effectively...

------
justinbaker84
This is not just starting - Google has been testing this since at least 2014.

I worked at a big online advertising agency from 2013-2014 and we had a lot of
fortune 500 companies as clients. Google began offering this tracking
functionality as a beta in 2014 to a small number of very large companies.

Here's the thing - Google is basically telling advertisers "just trust us to
report on our own performance." They are saying buy traffic from us and we
will use our secret algorithms to tell you how much revenue we drove and you
will have no way to verify the totals.

As you can imagine this is not an attractive proposition.

------
romanovcode
> Google says it has access to roughly 70% of U.S. credit and debit card
> transactions.

I don't get it, does VISA, MASTERCARD or AMEX just gives google the
transactions? That got to be illegal, right?

~~~
bonzini
Only if you didn't sign a contract that says they can.

In Europe it would be opt-in in all likelihood.

------
throwaway111112
Yesterday, I received [1] from a friend. I laughed it off as the usual
exaggeration when someone talks about Google and privacy. Today, I read that
Google moved one step closer to that story.

[1] [https://www.devrant.io/rants/605665/hello-gordons-pizza-
no-s...](https://www.devrant.io/rants/605665/hello-gordons-pizza-no-sir-its-
googles-pizza-so-its-a-wrong-number-no-sir-google)

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hopfog
Another way companies are connecting your online profile with offline
activities is by using one of the many call tracking services. Basically when
you visit a site using these you will be shown a unique phone number. When you
ring it the service will tie your web session to the call. The company will
see the caller's whole web user journey and any subsequent visits.

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sleepless
Cash is a great invention.

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jsonne
This is likely unpopular, but this makes my job exponentially easier. The
number of "What is that click worth" questions to us data driven marketing
folks by small businesses effectively closes off a lot of us that focus
primarily on the data from that market. With this, there is very real money to
be made with small businesses that were too skittish to advertise before.
We've been playing with Facebook's online to offline and frankly the brick and
mortar folks we work with that we're utilizing it are incredibly delighted.

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bumblebeard
Just because it makes your job easier doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

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inesta
Hmm I was wondering how some stores show up on Google maps even though I did
not use Google maps to get to those places. God damm Google.

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cyberhigh
That is because you have location services enabled on your phone. Google
collects your phones location with this on. You can see the details by going
to your location history.

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ams6110
Yeah I keep location services turned off most of the time. I also have never
intentionally clicked on an online ad of any kind.

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pksadiq
> Yeah I keep location services turned off most of the time.

Even if your location services, wifi and bt are off, they occasionally turns
on to get your location. In Lineage OS there is an additional setting to not
use wifi (when it is off) for location services.

May be you can look into developer options to disable this setting (Please
note that even if wifi is off, your phone searches for wifi hotspots to find
itself where it is).

And if your wifi/bt is on, your location is (almost) always available to
Google. You know it, right?

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hacksonx
Many ways are being suggested as workarounds for maintaining annonimity about
where one spends their money. Fact if the matter is, if the money leaves your
account in batches these guys will know. So Google, and others, in the age of
bitcoin will just partner with banks.

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sterban
Are there any credit card companies or banks offering cards that will not
participate?

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chatman
Dr. Stallman and FSF always promoted used of free software to counter
surveillance.

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staticelf
Next phone will be an iPhone even if I think Android is so much better.

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justforFranz
I'm not concerned. By the time they've figured out what everyone is buying,
people won't have any money anymore to buy anything. So... whatever.

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kator
Best part about this article, it's talking about Google advertising and
meanwhile the page loads with 147 trackers, page entry interstitials, auto-
play videos, and pop-up interstitials while I'm trying to read. Many of the
ads on that page are all google driven including the massive annoying pushdown
at the top of the page.

As to the topic, let's be clear credit card data mining has been going on
since before the web was born. I've explained this to people for decades, that
and "customer loyalty" programs are amazing sources of data while being very
scary at the same time.

What google is doing here is not any different than 100's of other vendors and
companies in advertising technology. Their advantage is the retention of all
your search data, clicks when it's a google ad etc. Facebook has comparable
data as do many companies. Both these companies enjoy a duopoly that is
massive and in some markets, they capture more than 70% of all advertising
spend. Those resources combined with offline techniques creates a white-hot
spot light that ignites a dialog that most likely should have happened before
the web was born.

Advertisers want to know the money they spend is effective and works. We can
all debate for eons about the effectiveness of advertising, but let me tell
you de facto that it works. These types of systems are designed to help them
optimize the spend.

Sadly, meanwhile you have perfectly good outlets like this newspaper where
that optimization has led to downward pressure combined with user habit
changes. They are desperate to stay in business and allow their digital
offerings to be turned into graffiti pages in hopes to make up for lost
revenues in the physical business. This leads to turning users off (157
trackers now as I write this) and they stop coming to the site. The leads to a
vicious cycle where the users stop coming, the advertisers notice and stop
spending or start discounting the money they're willing to pay. Digital death
is horrific, rapid and all automated.

I don't know the answer to all these things, what I do know is people do want
to have intelligent dialogs with other people who are offering something of
interest. But advertising has always in the past been about injecting itself
into people's lives in unwanted ways, from the kid screaming on the street
corner "Come and get it, hot off the press" to a page on latimes.com with now
158 trackers and more ad space than content.

I dream of a world where I can have intelligent dialogs with people offering
things that could enhance my life in some way. I spend every day of my life
thinking about how to do this, and I'm building technology and products to
address this idea. I would love nothing better than a single ad on a site like
this, the right one, the one you wouldn't mind hearing from and one that pays
the site owner 20x what they get now with their graffiti strategy. I can tell
you advertisers also want this, they don’t want to be on a page with 158
trackers, and a graffiti layout where their message is diluted by all the
noise.

It’s a real problem, it will get much worse before it gets better, but those
who say advertising is evil are missing the point. Effective advertising is
about communication, and should be person to person. The most powerful
advertisement is a friend telling another friend about something new and
exciting they discovered. However, to have that dialog you must have the first
experience, the discovery, the friend of a friend had to learn about this
amazing new product and advertising sets out to do that.

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z3t4
Does who advertise for products sold offline doesn't care about clicks though,
only views.

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MikeVanBike
Tracking more please google. Im really happy that you violate my privacy with
fancy new terms and ideas.

