Of course they will. No one would expect any different. The retailers using beacons along with their partner advertisers/data aggregators/data analyzers will be doing the same thing. Even Apple.
This is all about discovering more precise information about you specifically and personally in order to get deeper into your pockets. Who you are, where you are, where you've been, what you were doing, what you've eaten, what you've bought, and where you're probably going next.
If you hate the relatively innocuous discovery that cookies offer....
Maybe the bulb will go on for other people when they realize that the actual gathering of personal information is not as significant as how that information is used, or perhaps more importantly, which entity is controlling that info. Apple has a reputation for maintaining privacy, whereas companies like google (who rely on this info as their primary source of income) have a reputation for being sneaky, creepy, and dishonest about privacy.
So the Mets are going to use it at Citi Field this coming season? Does that mean I can tell them to get a decent pitching staff for a change???? (longtime fan here).
1) iBeacons are exclusive to Apple and do not provide any advertising data that can be used for tracking... An app just listens for iBeacons of interest and takes user-specified action when one is detected.
2) BLE beacons are a lower-level implementation and, likely, both advertise and listen. If they are advertising, they can be tracked -- but they need not advertise any device-specific or user-specific information... In that case they can only be tracked anonymously.
At the users choice, the BLE beacon can advertise the availability of device specific info -- things such as device type, temperature, orientation, battery-level, signal strength, etc. Still anonymous.
At the users choice, the BLE beacon could advertise the availability of user-specific and/od device-specific info -- but this is not likely or necessary... It can be encrypted, though,
An app on an Apple iDevice can use both iBeacons and BLE beacons -- the best of both worlds... and choose to "open the kimono" only to the extent that the user desires.
Since you unblocked me for the moment to read and reply I'll offer my comments.
Dick, all of us appreciate the time you're taking to explain Beacons and how they are implemented. As you've noted Apple isn't the only company involved with Beacons. You've made them sound quite helpful, friendly and innocuous and for many I'm sure they will be just as using Facebook or Google or Twitter or whatever is. What you haven't mentioned and something I'd love to get your perspective on is this:
Macy (as an example) doesn't exist in a vacuum. They have fairly deep relationships with Facebook, Google, Pinterest and other social sites with agreements to share/obtain certain personal and/or non-personal information. They also work with the credit bureaus, various advertisers, marketers etc. Shoppers are highly unlikely to always deal in cash as well as avoid anything else that links their unique ID with a name. That's the golden ring afterall so Macy will more likely than not figure out who you are if you visit often enough, even using cash. Now combine the very personalized shopping details they've collected with other data they've contracted from other providers. Then share some of the information gathered during your shopping trip with 3rd parties for "analytics" and social profiles. Then it's furthered mixed together with similar retailer/restaurant info from others you visit that also use beacons. Then that's thrown together with your on-line profile, credit bureau data, insurance data, etc etc. How big can it get and how can you possibly hope to control it?
Beacons will hardly be another innocuous nor tiny layer of "user intelligence gathering" that's easy to avoid IMO. There's solid reasons why retailers are excited by what Beacons bring to the table and the possibilities going forward. Being "invisible" to them isn't one.
Maybe the bulb will go on for other people when they realize that the actual gathering of personal information is not as significant as how that information is used, or perhaps more importantly, which entity is controlling that info. Apple has a reputation for maintaining privacy, whereas companies like google (who rely on this info as their primary source of income) have a reputation for being sneaky, creepy, and dishonest about privacy.
Apple is just one of many benefiting from more granular user information gathered from Beacons and who share at least some of it with dozens of 3rd parties. It's not Apple's data to own and control nor do I think they want to. In the end the only thing I think Apple wants to control is how you pay for those services and products using Beacons. Otherwise how far retailers want to go with it is up to them within limits and the shopping data they collect is theirs to do with as they wish in accordance with that retailers Privacy Policy (Dick correct me if that's wrong)
But I don't think the idea behind Beacons is a bad one and there will be lots of benefits to shoppers and retailers alike. And like free services on the web there will be millions who will trade just a little more of their private lives for a little convenience and some "free goodies". The problem is who knows how far the details of your Macy visit travel. It's certainly further than Apple or even Google, and those two would hardly be the ones I'd worry about anyway.
All this can be done without your shopping list app ever leaving the screen -- and you need not Bluetooth advertise that you are there, so the store cannot track you any more than it does now (store cameras, traffic treads, etc).
If you pay cash at checkout, the store has no access to any of your information!
But you don't need to turn off Bluetooth -- just don't run any apps that are advertising or scanning for beacons.
BTW, exactly the same thing as "beacons" can be (and is, in some places) done with WiFi (at a much higher battery drain)
You could run an app in the background that scans for iBeacons and logs the activity... and when you get home review all the "good deals" you missed.
In fact, an app written like this might be a way to get a gentle introductions to iBeacons.
"Before today, Shopkick’s business was already a hardware/software double play: the company’s app worked in tandem with a piece of hardware installed in participating stores, and retailers interacted with a dashboard to pass through details and other messaging on them. The hardware worked by emitting very high frequency signals that would trigger actions when a person walked through the doors.
Cyriac Roeding, co-founder and CEO of Shopkick, says that the shopBeacons will work in tandem with that model, and vastly improve it. Offers now will be pinged to users right when they are walking past them, or past a department that contains products that users have shown interest in before. And for those who have opted in, the iBeacon technology will also automatically open the app and can trigger other actions when you enter a participating store, such as telling users how many loyalty points they currently have to redeem towards a purchase (in the past users would have had to remember to do this themselves). http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/20/shopkick-rolls-out-ibeacon-enabled-shopping-alerts-with-shopbeacon-with-macys-as-its-first-trialist/
That would seem to indicate that opening the retailer/shopKick app isn't necessary to have offers transmitted. Is that correct?
BTW, the TC article has a better description of Macy's beta testing of Beacons.
Of course they will. No one would expect any different. The retailers using beacons along with their partner advertisers/data aggregators/data analyzers will be doing the same thing. Even Apple.
This is all about discovering more precise information about you specifically and personally in order to get deeper into your pockets. Who you are, where you are, where you've been, what you were doing, what you've eaten, what you've bought, and where you're probably going next.
If you hate the relatively innocuous discovery that cookies offer....
It's worse than that. If it were just advertising, maybe that wouldn't be so bad, although I find it extremely annoying and disconcerting when I see customized ads on sites in which Google (or whoever) is using cookies from other sites to determine where I've been. Personally, I think it should be illegal for any site to look at cookies that they didn't write.
I don't mind when my buying patterns are combined with everyone else's to establish useful data for companies to market, even if that data is getting resold for a profit, but I mind greatly when my individual data is available to anyone willing to pay for it.
This type of data can eventually be used against you. "Oh, he/she buys lots of high fat foods and little produce? Raise his health insurance rates." "Hmm, she seems to buy a lot of alcohol? Maybe she's an abuser and will have a bad liver in the future. Don't hire her." "Oh, he can afford to buy a lot of expensive fashions? I guess he doesn't need a raise." Etc. Personally, I don't use any loyalty cards at retailers. Most of the time, if you ask, they'll give you the same discount anyway. They can keep their "points", which are useless most of the time anyway. If it wasn't so convenient, I'd give up using credit and debit cards as well. Some bank should come out with a "privacy" credit card - maybe they charge a slightly higher fee, but it guarantees that you won't be personally tracked beyond what is necessary to bill you.
Even with the NSA revelations and the general knowledge about how Facebook and other sites use our data, I don't think people realize how much privacy they're giving up.
Furthermore, such type of interactivity can be extremely annoying. Let's say a friend has a baby and I buy some baby clothes as a gift. I really don't want to be plagued with baby clothes offers every time I walk into Macy's. (The recommendations engine on Amazon pulls this kind of crap.) Or let's say I stop at a table of jeans and look at them for a moment and the iBeacon recognizes that I did that and might have an interest in jeans, but the jeans I looked at were garbage. In the future, I don't want Macy's to bother me every time I walk past that same table.
An app that tells me where items are in a large store? Maybe. An app where I can scan a barcode of a previously bought item so I can find it again? That would be fine. But I don't need or want any interactivity beyond that. If I can avoid it by not loading a specific app? - that's fine, those who want it can use it. But if it's built into the OS so it's forced on me? I'll shut the phone off when I walk into a store.
Personally, I think it should be illegal for any site to look at cookies that they didn't write.
You do know that cookies were invented just so other sites could view your history. They also existed way before Google did. It's really easy to not allow them or to wipe them.
You do know that cookies were invented just so other sites could view your history. They also existed way before Google did. It's really easy to not allow them or to wipe them.
Many sites won't work with cookies turned off. I do wipe them regularly though, although that also wipes out settings on sites. And they were not invented so other sites could view your history. They were invented so that a site would know whether or not you had previously visited and what the state was of that last visit.
[*] You walk up to a store window or aisle that contains a sign with a QR code or web address
[*] You use your phone to scan the QR code or enter the web address
[*] [B][I][COLOR=blue]The sign doesn't know you are doing this, who you are, or that you are even there.[/COLOR][/I][/B]
[*] The store can use cameras, lasers, sound waves or traffic treads to detect people but they don't identify individuals
[/LIST]
[SIZE=4][U][B]With Apple iBeacons (Basic Operation -- no Opt in to anything)[/B][/U][/SIZE]
[LIST=1] [*] You decide you want to shop at Macys [LIST] [*] you download the Macys app from the App store [*] You startup the app -- it begins listening for [B][I]Macys iBeacons[/I][/B] [*] You set the app to notify you when a Macys iBeacon is detected [*] Your iPhone, times out, the Macys app goes into the background, and is eventually terminated [*] The "listen for Macys iBeacons" request has been pushed down to the BT radio [/LIST]
[*] You walk up to a store window or aisle that contains a [B][I]Macys iBeacon[/I][/B]
[*] The BT radio on your iPhone recognizes that you are near a [B][I]Macys iBeacon[/I][/B] that you are listening for. Based on your preferences, the iPhone can: [LIST] [*] do nothing [*] notify you [*] open the Macys app at the relevant page for the [B][I]specific Macys iBeaco[/I][/B]n detected. [/LIST]
[*] [B][I][COLOR=blue]The iBeacon doesn't know you are doing this, who you are, or that you are even there[/COLOR][/I][/B].
[*] The store can use cameras, lasers, sound waves or traffic treads to detect people but they don't identify individuals [/LIST]
[B][I][COLOR=blue]With Apple's implementation of iBeacons, you have to opt-in to allow the App to broadcast any location data or any information about your iPhone, any data about you, or your friends (contacts, etc).[/COLOR][/I][/B]
You startup the app -- it begins listening for Macys iBeacons
You set the app to notify you when a Macys iBeacon is detected
Your iPhone, times out, the Macys app goes into the background, and is eventually terminated
The "listen for Macys iBeacons" request has been pushed down to the BT radio
You walk up to a store window or aisle that contains a Macys iBeacon
The BT radio on your iPhone recognizes that you are near a Macys iBeacon that you are listening for. Based on your preferences, the iPhone can:
do nothing
notify you
open the Macys app at the relevant page for the specific Macys iBeacon detected.
That's the way I thought you had generally described it. Yet the actual provider for Macy's Beacon service, ShopKick, appears to say you'll get pushed ads/marketeting from the vendor even if the app isn't opened.
Quote: "The closed beta in the two Macy’s stores — which will work on the Shopkick app not just on iPhone devices but also Android handsets using version 4.3 or higher — will open up to all visitors in the locations “within weeks... Offers now will be pinged to users right when they are walking past them, or past a department that contains products that users have shown interest in before.And for those who have opted in, the iBeacon technology will also automatically open the app.
Is ShopKick implementing iBeacon services differently than you've understood or is their CEO perhaps mistaken about how their service will work?
Comments
Maybe the bulb will go on for other people when they realize that the actual gathering of personal information is not as significant as how that information is used, or perhaps more importantly, which entity is controlling that info. Apple has a reputation for maintaining privacy, whereas companies like google (who rely on this info as their primary source of income) have a reputation for being sneaky, creepy, and dishonest about privacy.
Since you unblocked me for the moment to read and reply I'll offer my comments.
Dick, all of us appreciate the time you're taking to explain Beacons and how they are implemented. As you've noted Apple isn't the only company involved with Beacons. You've made them sound quite helpful, friendly and innocuous and for many I'm sure they will be just as using Facebook or Google or Twitter or whatever is. What you haven't mentioned and something I'd love to get your perspective on is this:
Macy (as an example) doesn't exist in a vacuum. They have fairly deep relationships with Facebook, Google, Pinterest and other social sites with agreements to share/obtain certain personal and/or non-personal information. They also work with the credit bureaus, various advertisers, marketers etc. Shoppers are highly unlikely to always deal in cash as well as avoid anything else that links their unique ID with a name. That's the golden ring afterall so Macy will more likely than not figure out who you are if you visit often enough, even using cash. Now combine the very personalized shopping details they've collected with other data they've contracted from other providers. Then share some of the information gathered during your shopping trip with 3rd parties for "analytics" and social profiles. Then it's furthered mixed together with similar retailer/restaurant info from others you visit that also use beacons. Then that's thrown together with your on-line profile, credit bureau data, insurance data, etc etc. How big can it get and how can you possibly hope to control it?
Beacons will hardly be another innocuous nor tiny layer of "user intelligence gathering" that's easy to avoid IMO. There's solid reasons why retailers are excited by what Beacons bring to the table and the possibilities going forward. Being "invisible" to them isn't one.
Apple is just one of many benefiting from more granular user information gathered from Beacons and who share at least some of it with dozens of 3rd parties. It's not Apple's data to own and control nor do I think they want to. In the end the only thing I think Apple wants to control is how you pay for those services and products using Beacons. Otherwise how far retailers want to go with it is up to them within limits and the shopping data they collect is theirs to do with as they wish in accordance with that retailers Privacy Policy (Dick correct me if that's wrong)
But I don't think the idea behind Beacons is a bad one and there will be lots of benefits to shoppers and retailers alike. And like free services on the web there will be millions who will trade just a little more of their private lives for a little convenience and some "free goodies". The problem is who knows how far the details of your Macy visit travel. It's certainly further than Apple or even Google, and those two would hardly be the ones I'd worry about anyway.
A scenario completely useless for Google, then.
"Before today, Shopkick’s business was already a hardware/software double play: the company’s app worked in tandem with a piece of hardware installed in participating stores, and retailers interacted with a dashboard to pass through details and other messaging on them. The hardware worked by emitting very high frequency signals that would trigger actions when a person walked through the doors.
Cyriac Roeding, co-founder and CEO of Shopkick, says that the shopBeacons will work in tandem with that model, and vastly improve it. Offers now will be pinged to users right when they are walking past them, or past a department that contains products that users have shown interest in before. And for those who have opted in, the iBeacon technology will also automatically open the app and can trigger other actions when you enter a participating store, such as telling users how many loyalty points they currently have to redeem towards a purchase (in the past users would have had to remember to do this themselves).
http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/20/shopkick-rolls-out-ibeacon-enabled-shopping-alerts-with-shopbeacon-with-macys-as-its-first-trialist/
That would seem to indicate that opening the retailer/shopKick app isn't necessary to have offers transmitted. Is that correct?
BTW, the TC article has a better description of Macy's beta testing of Beacons.
Of course they will. No one would expect any different. The retailers using beacons along with their partner advertisers/data aggregators/data analyzers will be doing the same thing. Even Apple.
This is all about discovering more precise information about you specifically and personally in order to get deeper into your pockets. Who you are, where you are, where you've been, what you were doing, what you've eaten, what you've bought, and where you're probably going next.
If you hate the relatively innocuous discovery that cookies offer....
It's worse than that. If it were just advertising, maybe that wouldn't be so bad, although I find it extremely annoying and disconcerting when I see customized ads on sites in which Google (or whoever) is using cookies from other sites to determine where I've been. Personally, I think it should be illegal for any site to look at cookies that they didn't write.
I don't mind when my buying patterns are combined with everyone else's to establish useful data for companies to market, even if that data is getting resold for a profit, but I mind greatly when my individual data is available to anyone willing to pay for it.
This type of data can eventually be used against you. "Oh, he/she buys lots of high fat foods and little produce? Raise his health insurance rates." "Hmm, she seems to buy a lot of alcohol? Maybe she's an abuser and will have a bad liver in the future. Don't hire her." "Oh, he can afford to buy a lot of expensive fashions? I guess he doesn't need a raise." Etc. Personally, I don't use any loyalty cards at retailers. Most of the time, if you ask, they'll give you the same discount anyway. They can keep their "points", which are useless most of the time anyway. If it wasn't so convenient, I'd give up using credit and debit cards as well. Some bank should come out with a "privacy" credit card - maybe they charge a slightly higher fee, but it guarantees that you won't be personally tracked beyond what is necessary to bill you.
Even with the NSA revelations and the general knowledge about how Facebook and other sites use our data, I don't think people realize how much privacy they're giving up.
Furthermore, such type of interactivity can be extremely annoying. Let's say a friend has a baby and I buy some baby clothes as a gift. I really don't want to be plagued with baby clothes offers every time I walk into Macy's. (The recommendations engine on Amazon pulls this kind of crap.) Or let's say I stop at a table of jeans and look at them for a moment and the iBeacon recognizes that I did that and might have an interest in jeans, but the jeans I looked at were garbage. In the future, I don't want Macy's to bother me every time I walk past that same table.
An app that tells me where items are in a large store? Maybe. An app where I can scan a barcode of a previously bought item so I can find it again? That would be fine. But I don't need or want any interactivity beyond that. If I can avoid it by not loading a specific app? - that's fine, those who want it can use it. But if it's built into the OS so it's forced on me? I'll shut the phone off when I walk into a store.
You do know that cookies were invented just so other sites could view your history. They also existed way before Google did. It's really easy to not allow them or to wipe them.
You do know that cookies were invented just so other sites could view your history. They also existed way before Google did. It's really easy to not allow them or to wipe them.
Many sites won't work with cookies turned off. I do wipe them regularly though, although that also wipes out settings on sites. And they were not invented so other sites could view your history. They were invented so that a site would know whether or not you had previously visited and what the state was of that last visit.
Enjoy the Clever Shopping
! http://www.deluxebattery.com/enjoy-simply-and-clever-shopping-with-ibeacon-macy-apple-save-time-get-alerts/
[SIZE=4][U][B]Before iBeacons[/B][/U][/SIZE]
[LIST=1]
[*] You decide to go shopping at Macys
[*] You walk up to a store window or aisle that contains a sign with a QR code or web address
[*] You use your phone to scan the QR code or enter the web address
[*] [B][I][COLOR=blue]The sign doesn't know you are doing this, who you are, or that you are even there.[/COLOR][/I][/B]
[*] The store can use cameras, lasers, sound waves or traffic treads to detect people but they don't identify individuals
[/LIST]
[SIZE=4][U][B]With Apple iBeacons (Basic Operation -- no Opt in to anything)[/B][/U][/SIZE]
[LIST=1]
[*] You decide you want to shop at Macys
[LIST]
[*] you download the Macys app from the App store
[*] You startup the app -- it begins listening for [B][I]Macys iBeacons[/I][/B]
[*] You set the app to notify you when a Macys iBeacon is detected
[*] Your iPhone, times out, the Macys app goes into the background, and is eventually terminated
[*] The "listen for Macys iBeacons" request has been pushed down to the BT radio
[/LIST]
[*] You walk up to a store window or aisle that contains a [B][I]Macys iBeacon[/I][/B]
[*] The BT radio on your iPhone recognizes that you are near a [B][I]Macys iBeacon[/I][/B] that you are listening for. Based on your preferences, the iPhone can:
[LIST]
[*] do nothing
[*] notify you
[*] open the Macys app at the relevant page for the [B][I]specific Macys iBeaco[/I][/B]n detected.
[/LIST]
[*] [B][I][COLOR=blue]The iBeacon doesn't know you are doing this, who you are, or that you are even there[/COLOR][/I][/B].
[*] The store can use cameras, lasers, sound waves or traffic treads to detect people but they don't identify individuals
[/LIST]
[B][I][COLOR=blue]With Apple's implementation of iBeacons, you have to opt-in to allow the App to broadcast any location data or any information about your iPhone, any data about you, or your friends (contacts, etc).[/COLOR][/I][/B]
That's the way I thought you had generally described it. Yet the actual provider for Macy's Beacon service, ShopKick, appears to say you'll get pushed ads/marketeting from the vendor even if the app isn't opened.
Quote: "The closed beta in the two Macy’s stores — which will work on the Shopkick app not just on iPhone devices but also Android handsets using version 4.3 or higher — will open up to all visitors in the locations “within weeks... Offers now will be pinged to users right when they are walking past them, or past a department that contains products that users have shown interest in before. And for those who have opted in, the iBeacon technology will also automatically open the app .
Is ShopKick implementing iBeacon services differently than you've understood or is their CEO perhaps mistaken about how their service will work?