[liberationtech] Recently sold sensenetworks has creepy buying habits tracking feature

[duncan at openmailbox.org]

So summarising the you guys mentioned, it looks like our options are:

1. randomise phone MAC addresses
2. turn off WiFi
3. don't use store loyalty cards

Are there other things we can do? Are the other leakages we need to 
stop?


On 2014-07-03 16:54, JCX wrote:
> There are many companies that do this through Wi-Fi hotspots.
> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/datablog/2014/jan/10/how-tracking-customers-in-store-will-soon-be-the-norm 
> [4]
> 
> You can correlate them to online users if the users actually connect to 
> the free wifi hotspots and login somehow. (Think free coupon or 
> whatever)
> 
> I imagine you can get something reasonable going if you hook the system 
> up to the POS system.
> 
> Apple's recent decision to randomize MAC ID on iOS might make it harder 
> but probably not impossible.
> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/06/ios8-to-stymie-trackers-and-marketers-with-mac-address-randomization/ 
> [5]
> 
> On 3 July 2014 02:54, <duncan at openmailbox.org> wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> A few months back a ad platform sensenetworks was recently bought by a 
>> large US corp. Among their offerings, is the not uncommon real-time 
>> bidding auction for ads:
>> 
>> http://crypto.mm.st/sense-ad-bid.jpg [1]
>> 
>> However, what shocks me is the claim that they're able to track users 
>> buying items in physical stores. How they do this, is completely 
>> beyond me. (https://www.sensenetworks.com/retail-retargeting/ [2])
>> 
>> --
>> Duncan
>> 
>> --
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Links:
------
[1] http://crypto.mm.st/sense-ad-bid.jpg
[2] https://www.sensenetworks.com/retail-retargeting/
[3] https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
[4] 
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/datablog/2014/jan/10/how-tracking-customers-in-store-will-soon-be-the-norm
[5] 
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/06/ios8-to-stymie-trackers-and-marketers-with-mac-address-randomization/