20 ms·

Good. It should be a problem for them.

shurcooL 12y ago
I'm genuinely curious, how does it being a problem for them benefit you? (I'm assuming you're not saying that out of indifferent malice but because you have personal gains, which is normal.) Can you please elaborate on your point?
- colechristensen 12y ago
  Most people, if it explained to them, would be generally uncomfortable with the idea of their movements in a public place being so specifically logged. How would you feel if every time you were in a store, an employee followed you around and took notes on your actions?
  - shurcooL 12y ago
    Thanks for a constructive response to my question. I'm simply trying to gain a better understanding of the situation. > How would you feel if every time you were in a store, an employee followed you around and took notes on your actions? Most people would feel uneasy/bothered by that. But are those emotions warranted? If we did not get such emotions, would the same scenario be okay? Or are the emotions a consequence of the true reason why we're against such behavior. It's also worth noting that the employee following you around is a visible behavior, while being tracked via Wi-Fi mac addresses is much less intrusive.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      It's also worth noting that the employee following you around is a visible behavior, while being tracked via Wi-Fi mac addresses is much less intrusive. It's less visibly intrusive, but the effect is the same. Our instincts aren't very good at reacting to effects we can't see, having evolved in a world where there were no undetectable ways for someone to follow us. Thus, we should consider what our natural reactions would be to a person doing the thing we want to use technology to do, before we create the technology to do it.
      - shurcooL 12y ago
        > It's less visibly intrusive, but the effect is the same. Our instincts aren't very good at reacting to effects we can't see Absolutely true. We should also consider the underlying causes of certain emotions, and whether or not they should be warranted. Many phobias are unwarranted fears, so the goal is to eliminate the emotion rather than the underlying source. But the decision to _try_ to eliminate the fear can only be done after identifying and confirming that the fear is indeed unwarranted and unhealthy. On the other hand, if the emotion is warranted, then it's completely valid. What I'm suggesting is that human emotion serve as a really good indicator, but they cannot be taken as the absolute truth. It's best to investigate the actual facts and come up with logical conclusions. So neither trusting emotions blindly, nor ignoring them completely is the best course of action, but something in between.
- _greim_ 12y ago
  I think on the general principle of privacy. But also, the idea that the more trackable you are, the more easily manipulated you are by marketers and advertisers. Free markets work better the more consumers are rational. Giving marketers deep psychological and behavioral insight increasingly enables them to circumvent rationality and "hack" consumers in various ways.
  - shurcooL 12y ago
    Thanks for a constructive and very insightful response. This definitely seems to be a valid reason why people would be against being tracked. We don't want to be more easily manipulated (through the data that the ones doing tracking are able to acquire) and coerced into buying things we don't want/need (but the ones doing tracking want us to buy). Would it be accurate to describe it like this: the consumers' interests are to be rational, less easily manipulated and "unhackable", and being tracked is a threat to those interests. On the other hand, the store owners are trying their best to get their products sold, so their interests are opposite of the consumers, to find ways to sell as many things as possible. If that's accurate, I find it interesting that there are these underlying "wars" occurring within a single species. In fact, a single person may wake up and go to work one morning, serving in the position of the one doing the "tracking" and fighting against the interests of consumers, then in the evening they may go shopping and end up on the other side, fighting against the interests of the ones doing tracking. Pretty fascinating.
    - _greim_ 12y ago
      > Would it be accurate to describe it like this: the consumers' interests are to be rational, less easily manipulated and "unhackable", and being tracked is a threat to those interests. In my view, yes. Being rational is by definition the only way to make my life better. The harder it is to be rational—to perceive the truth through all the layers of bullshit and manipulation—the less I trust my own conclusions, and free markets in general.
    - Alex_MJ 12y ago
      That's decently accurate. We're all doing what's in our best interest, in the role that we play in that time. In general - I want to give people who don't know me personally (and especially people trying to sell me anything) less power to catch my attention and pull at my impulses, not more.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  Why should I have my movements tracked in a store when I'm not using the resources offered by them? They should feel lucky to have me in their store and provide service, not Orwellian surveillance. My other beef here is that this is just another way to further dumb down and make retail employment completely mindless.
  - shurcooL 12y ago
    > Why should I have my movements tracked in a store when I'm not using the resources offered by them? To answer your question directly, one of the advantages could be that they can optimize the store layout better so you don't have to walk as much to find what you want. (There are other disadvantages and advantages, by listing one of them I don't exclude the existence of others, but I can't cover everything.)
    - DanBC 12y ago
      > one of the advantages could be that they can optimize the store layout better so you don't have to walk as much to find what you want. But stores do not want to do that. Stores know you want a pint of milk and loaf of bread. They put these two items far apart which means you need to walk past all that other stuff, this increasing the chance you'll buy something else. Tracking technology isn't going to ne used to make my experience nicer unless that translates into more money fornthe store.
      - shurcooL 12y ago
        This is interesting and indicative of a bigger problem. Why isn't it most profitable for the stores to provide the best experience for customers in order to be most profitable? Suppose there are two stores: - Store A. Offers decent experience for the customer. - Store B. Offers much better experience for the customer. One would naively expect and hope that, given those two choices, more people would prefer to go to the better Store B and hence it would be more profitable. Hence the stores would try to do their best to serve the customer interests. Why is it instead more optimal for stores not to optimize for the happiness of its customers? Could it be because customers are not adept at recognizing which stores offer better experience for them, _and rewarding_ such stores by preferring them over other stores?
- x0x0 12y ago
  it's a simple test: if data companies collect where clearly explained to the user, would the user approve or not? "By entering this store, we will permanently record your location every 60 seconds. The main purpose of said data collection is attempting to stitch your actions on the internet to store visits to more effectively sell advertising. Further, we will sell this data to many companies, most of whom we don't directly interact with. Our privacy 'policy' will most likely never be audited, and the worst possible outcome of violations is a fine in the low millions of dollars. We will hand this information over to police and lawyers if they clear the high bar of, well, asking for it. The nsa doesn't bother asking." What do you think people would choose?
  - shurcooL 12y ago
    Well put analogy. My guess is that most people would not be okay with that and choose to opt out. But my question/argument is, would that be a rational decision? I don't see a lot of benefit for the customer to deny the store those options, so why do it if there's nothing to be gained from denying. > attempting to stitch your actions on the internet to store visits to more effectively sell advertising I think this is the key factor. If people see themselves as susceptible to such manipulation, then it does benefit them to deny such behavior to prevent stores from affecting them negatively.
    - ZachPruckowski 12y ago
      >But my question/argument is, would that be a rational decision? Does that matter? We[1] live in a capitalist democracy. One of the tenets of capitalism is that consumers should be well-informed and "vote with their dollars/feet", and the core principle of democracy is that the individual citizens get to decide how their society is run. We don't live in a LessWrong-ocracy where the world is run based on somebody's idea of rational objectivity or whatever. I'm in politics so I know exactly how frustrating it can be when the average Joe doesn't necessarily agree with your vision of a rational decision, but if that's the case, the solution is to change their minds, not to circumvent or obfuscate to get around them. [1] - I'm thinking Westerners in general, but I'm American, so I may be over-generalizing, we're good at that :-)
- zmmmmm 12y ago
  For me it is mostly about the involuntary nature of it. I actually don't mind myself, but I do mind not having the ability to turn that tracking off (well, without manually disabling Wifi all the time anyway) or in any way control or affect the profile it generates. Interesting to compare to Google who tracks customers around the internet. Crucially, if you don't log in to a Google account you are only one 'clear cookies' away from erasing your profile (I wonder occasionally if Google reconstructs profiles across different cookie sessions or not ...). At least on that side, you have some control. You can't change your MAC address nearly so easily.

I'm genuinely curious, how does it being a problem for them benefit you? (I'm assuming you're not saying that out of indifferent malice but because you have personal gains, which is normal.) Can you please elaborate on your point?

colechristensen 12y ago
Most people, if it explained to them, would be generally uncomfortable with the idea of their movements in a public place being so specifically logged. How would you feel if every time you were in a store, an employee followed you around and took notes on your actions?
- shurcooL 12y ago
  Thanks for a constructive response to my question. I'm simply trying to gain a better understanding of the situation. > How would you feel if every time you were in a store, an employee followed you around and took notes on your actions? Most people would feel uneasy/bothered by that. But are those emotions warranted? If we did not get such emotions, would the same scenario be okay? Or are the emotions a consequence of the true reason why we're against such behavior. It's also worth noting that the employee following you around is a visible behavior, while being tracked via Wi-Fi mac addresses is much less intrusive.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    It's also worth noting that the employee following you around is a visible behavior, while being tracked via Wi-Fi mac addresses is much less intrusive. It's less visibly intrusive, but the effect is the same. Our instincts aren't very good at reacting to effects we can't see, having evolved in a world where there were no undetectable ways for someone to follow us. Thus, we should consider what our natural reactions would be to a person doing the thing we want to use technology to do, before we create the technology to do it.
    - shurcooL 12y ago
      > It's less visibly intrusive, but the effect is the same. Our instincts aren't very good at reacting to effects we can't see Absolutely true. We should also consider the underlying causes of certain emotions, and whether or not they should be warranted. Many phobias are unwarranted fears, so the goal is to eliminate the emotion rather than the underlying source. But the decision to _try_ to eliminate the fear can only be done after identifying and confirming that the fear is indeed unwarranted and unhealthy. On the other hand, if the emotion is warranted, then it's completely valid. What I'm suggesting is that human emotion serve as a really good indicator, but they cannot be taken as the absolute truth. It's best to investigate the actual facts and come up with logical conclusions. So neither trusting emotions blindly, nor ignoring them completely is the best course of action, but something in between.
_greim_ 12y ago
I think on the general principle of privacy. But also, the idea that the more trackable you are, the more easily manipulated you are by marketers and advertisers. Free markets work better the more consumers are rational. Giving marketers deep psychological and behavioral insight increasingly enables them to circumvent rationality and "hack" consumers in various ways.
- shurcooL 12y ago
  Thanks for a constructive and very insightful response. This definitely seems to be a valid reason why people would be against being tracked. We don't want to be more easily manipulated (through the data that the ones doing tracking are able to acquire) and coerced into buying things we don't want/need (but the ones doing tracking want us to buy). Would it be accurate to describe it like this: the consumers' interests are to be rational, less easily manipulated and "unhackable", and being tracked is a threat to those interests. On the other hand, the store owners are trying their best to get their products sold, so their interests are opposite of the consumers, to find ways to sell as many things as possible. If that's accurate, I find it interesting that there are these underlying "wars" occurring within a single species. In fact, a single person may wake up and go to work one morning, serving in the position of the one doing the "tracking" and fighting against the interests of consumers, then in the evening they may go shopping and end up on the other side, fighting against the interests of the ones doing tracking. Pretty fascinating.
  - _greim_ 12y ago
    > Would it be accurate to describe it like this: the consumers' interests are to be rational, less easily manipulated and "unhackable", and being tracked is a threat to those interests. In my view, yes. Being rational is by definition the only way to make my life better. The harder it is to be rational—to perceive the truth through all the layers of bullshit and manipulation—the less I trust my own conclusions, and free markets in general.
  - Alex_MJ 12y ago
    That's decently accurate. We're all doing what's in our best interest, in the role that we play in that time. In general - I want to give people who don't know me personally (and especially people trying to sell me anything) less power to catch my attention and pull at my impulses, not more.
Spooky23 12y ago
Why should I have my movements tracked in a store when I'm not using the resources offered by them? They should feel lucky to have me in their store and provide service, not Orwellian surveillance. My other beef here is that this is just another way to further dumb down and make retail employment completely mindless.
- shurcooL 12y ago
  > Why should I have my movements tracked in a store when I'm not using the resources offered by them? To answer your question directly, one of the advantages could be that they can optimize the store layout better so you don't have to walk as much to find what you want. (There are other disadvantages and advantages, by listing one of them I don't exclude the existence of others, but I can't cover everything.)
  - DanBC 12y ago
    > one of the advantages could be that they can optimize the store layout better so you don't have to walk as much to find what you want. But stores do not want to do that. Stores know you want a pint of milk and loaf of bread. They put these two items far apart which means you need to walk past all that other stuff, this increasing the chance you'll buy something else. Tracking technology isn't going to ne used to make my experience nicer unless that translates into more money fornthe store.
    - shurcooL 12y ago
      This is interesting and indicative of a bigger problem. Why isn't it most profitable for the stores to provide the best experience for customers in order to be most profitable? Suppose there are two stores: - Store A. Offers decent experience for the customer. - Store B. Offers much better experience for the customer. One would naively expect and hope that, given those two choices, more people would prefer to go to the better Store B and hence it would be more profitable. Hence the stores would try to do their best to serve the customer interests. Why is it instead more optimal for stores not to optimize for the happiness of its customers? Could it be because customers are not adept at recognizing which stores offer better experience for them, _and rewarding_ such stores by preferring them over other stores?
x0x0 12y ago
it's a simple test: if data companies collect where clearly explained to the user, would the user approve or not? "By entering this store, we will permanently record your location every 60 seconds. The main purpose of said data collection is attempting to stitch your actions on the internet to store visits to more effectively sell advertising. Further, we will sell this data to many companies, most of whom we don't directly interact with. Our privacy 'policy' will most likely never be audited, and the worst possible outcome of violations is a fine in the low millions of dollars. We will hand this information over to police and lawyers if they clear the high bar of, well, asking for it. The nsa doesn't bother asking." What do you think people would choose?
- shurcooL 12y ago
  Well put analogy. My guess is that most people would not be okay with that and choose to opt out. But my question/argument is, would that be a rational decision? I don't see a lot of benefit for the customer to deny the store those options, so why do it if there's nothing to be gained from denying. > attempting to stitch your actions on the internet to store visits to more effectively sell advertising I think this is the key factor. If people see themselves as susceptible to such manipulation, then it does benefit them to deny such behavior to prevent stores from affecting them negatively.
  - ZachPruckowski 12y ago
    >But my question/argument is, would that be a rational decision? Does that matter? We[1] live in a capitalist democracy. One of the tenets of capitalism is that consumers should be well-informed and "vote with their dollars/feet", and the core principle of democracy is that the individual citizens get to decide how their society is run. We don't live in a LessWrong-ocracy where the world is run based on somebody's idea of rational objectivity or whatever. I'm in politics so I know exactly how frustrating it can be when the average Joe doesn't necessarily agree with your vision of a rational decision, but if that's the case, the solution is to change their minds, not to circumvent or obfuscate to get around them. [1] - I'm thinking Westerners in general, but I'm American, so I may be over-generalizing, we're good at that :-)
zmmmmm 12y ago
For me it is mostly about the involuntary nature of it. I actually don't mind myself, but I do mind not having the ability to turn that tracking off (well, without manually disabling Wifi all the time anyway) or in any way control or affect the profile it generates. Interesting to compare to Google who tracks customers around the internet. Crucially, if you don't log in to a Google account you are only one 'clear cookies' away from erasing your profile (I wonder occasionally if Google reconstructs profiles across different cookie sessions or not ...). At least on that side, you have some control. You can't change your MAC address nearly so easily.