Four top euro carriers will use phone numbers to target ads and annoy Google & Facebook In a world saturated with digital ads, four of Europe's mightiest telcos will soon ask citizens if they're willing to volunteer their phone numbers to a startup that promises to deliver targeted ads while also observing European privacy regulations. The European Commission last Friday approved formation of the joint venture …
I have decided, after 3rd (or 4th?) time of being subscribed to amazon prime, that I've had enough, and I have obstained from amazon for well over a year. I do go there once in a while, as they're a good benchmark for online pricing, and with a large number of reviews I can go through the negative ones to make a better pre-purchase judgement - elsewhere. Effectively, amazon has become a useful tool for me. I guess, the same as beta-testers (Windows users) are a useful tool for Microsoft...
I watch out for that, but I know I have been lucky so far. And Amazon want you to always save a credit card. Don't want prime, don't watch TV enough and they certainly don't deliver same day or next day ANYTHING in my area.
Either delete the card again directly afterwards, or use a disposable top up card.
You are supposed to be able to say "no", but we have to protect you from that error because it's in your own interest to opt in, it would be a crying shame to miss out on all those amazing opportunities...
And this will certainly remain so as long as the induced expenses (fines) remain smaller than the profits.
You would be surprised how many people click the Continue or shiny green button on cookie consent popups for websites. Even when it's a simple binary accept/reject option, not to mention the complicated "Let me choose" pathway.
There will always be plenty of ignorant users or subtle ways to persuade the others.
Exactly. Last time I switched provider I found that I was magically opted-in for data hoarding despite my explicit request of not being.
Anyway I forbid Vodafone to send me anything since they sent me SMSs in the middle of the night advertising a car (before phones had "not disturb" settings).
I must be getting old, because there are a number to which I have apparently subscribed, but I don't recall ever doing so (or even knowing the brand).
As an aside, if that ever happens and you submit a complaint, make sure you request the IP address and details for the "approval" at the same time (if you want to take matters further), as requesting after the complaint gets "but we removed all the details when you complained".
As an aside, if that ever happens and you submit a complaint, make sure you request the IP address and details for the "approval" at the same time (if you want to take matters further), as requesting after the complaint gets "but we removed all the details when you complained".
You won't get an IP address because of GDPR. You would need a court order for that.
That said, I'd be of the option that you should get the IP address. Because of GDPR. Because it's supposedly personally identifiable data that's identifying you. The reason they wouldn't want to give it to you is that if it wasn't an IP address that could be associated with you, the signup would be shown to be fraudulent.
This is an interesting one:
Carphone Warehouse will have sucked information from somewhere but when then get an unsolicited marketing contact they:
1, Say they don't have your details (WTF, you just called me and asked for me by name)
2. They cannot delete the details
3. If you press them they allege they can delete the details but it will cost £200.
Yes, opt-in seems to have an increasing tendency to 'default' to opted-in (whether by tick box or by simply ignoring your choice), thus making it actually an illegal opt-out. Allegedly, of course, and I'm sure it's entirely accidental.
As an aside, having your own domain and registering with every company with a separate email address (actually a forwarding address) <company name>@<your domain> is remarkably effective in controlling miscreants who abuse email in some way or another, although it is more effort to set up each time. You get to know the culprit and to delete the forwarding address.
As an aside, having your own domain and registering with every company with a separate email address (actually a forwarding address) <company name>@<your domain> is remarkably effective in controlling miscreants who abuse email in some way or another, although it is more effort to set up each time. You get to know the culprit and to delete the forwarding address.
Very little effort with a catch-all and some rules in the client to automatically delete emails from miscreants (rules to be set up if, as and when necessary).
Most annoying is when you are presented with two options -
"Oh yes please, sign me up straight away" and "Not just now, but do keep asking me, again and again and again......"
So it's opt in now, or get nagged and nagged until you do. The "No. Never" button is never presented to the user.
Right now I'm ambivalent on this. I might just need time to think it over.
On one side, each time I think about giving my consent to something that's related to advertising, my finger automatically twitches away from the checkbox. I'm sorry, but it's a wired reflex by now, and I'm not sure I can override it. Especially when my telephone number is involved.
Seriously, I understand that this is not a consent to get spam calls, but telcos just do not have my trust right now on this matter. Not even a binding, legal agreement is enough to restore it. I am getting spam calls that are in flagrant violation of multiple laws, every day. At this point, I'm treating the entire ad industry like organized crime in a 2nd world country: don't attract its attention, the law won't protect you.
On the other side, though, I have to admit that I'm already tracked and targeted in multiple ways that are not anonymous at all, not even pretending to be. If the telcos created a way to track me that is anonymous-to-the-ad-network (if not anonymous to the telco itself), it would be yet another way to track me, but it would have two significant benefits. First, it would create competition against those that know not only what I buy and what I search for, but also what's my name and where I live.
Second, and maybe more important, if it works, it might create the political basis needed to finally make personally-identifiable tracking illegal for real. Show the ad slingers they can do their targeted advertising without knowing my personal details, and maybe this will finally give the privacy lobby enough ammo to push through something effective. Something to the effect of "here's an ID you can track, but if you try to track anything else, you get the hammer". It would be a compromise, but it also would be progress.
Right now, though, my opinion is that even if it works and it somehow gets adoption (and I can't imagine how), it will be trivial for the ad networks to de-anonymize the ID. So...
frankly speaking, no entity, private or public (never mind gov-related) has my trust these days. I have been resigned to the fact that even if they don't sell my data, they WILL get hacked / lose it / mis-use it, question is not if, but when, i.e. how soon.
> it will be trivial for the ad networks to de-anonymize the ID
Indeed, when they say "a pseudo-anonymous digital token that cannot be reverse-engineered" you already know this will be totally transparent, and given the number of actors very quickly public. Their reaction? "Oh sorry, that was a bug, it was supposed to be 'impossible' to reverse-engineer, not 'trivial'. Oh well, of course now it's too late to change it, sorry again. Hey, after all if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. Ah yes, and think of the children too!"
OK, I'll put my hand up. Say I'm interested in getting a new drill. I do a few searches while I'm researching, the advertisers pick up on this and I then see ads for drills (or bits, or eye protectors, or whatever). It might bring something to my attention I haven't seen and I like. I'd rather that than random ads, say for incontinence pads[1].They're only ads, it's not as if I'm forced to buy anything.
p.s. I'm none of young, female, or employed in the coloured crayons department.
[1] For now at least. Maybe in the future.
Let's suppose Addpush Co. 'has my consent to use my phone number to ID me'. How then does it 'target' me? That means Adpush Co. knows what sort of ads for drain-rods, bus times, plastic macs and special 'books' I want. Either I tell them explicitly or they build a profile of my web browsing or use 'AI' to leech from my emails. Surely that's just more creepy surveillance? But also if you have a 'smart' TV that'll be tied to a phone number without you thinking about ads being pushed to your telly as well. Get your adblocker while you still can. (Has anyone seen an advert for an adblocker?) Oh and did I mention option-out after a while. How effective will that be? Not, because the ad networks have the ID and all they need to know is that it's a 'unique' ID. You know how when you move into a new house and keep getting post for the previous residents? How will you 'reset' or 'zero' your new phone number? And of course credit cards numbers are tied to phones.
It doesn't, it won't, and it's just more spam.
The problem is the usual one contained in this statement-
The EU statement announcing its approval of the entity explains it will "allow brands and publishers to recognize users on their websites or applications on a pseudonymous basis, group them under different categories and tailor their content to specific users' groups."
Call me old fashioned, but I thought an effective advert was one that matches supply and demand. Maybe I want to buy a new washing machine. If I use Amazon, buying a washing machine will probably then fill my recommendations with more washing machines to buy. After all, who doesn't want at least 7 washing machines? Or I still remember a time while I was without PC, and without adblocker. In one 20-30min program, I might get 3 or 4 adverts. They'd all be for amazing discounts from Virgin for train tickets from London to Manchester. Or Mars telling me about how 2 brothers had 1 cup, and decided to fill it with Twix.
I didn't live in London, I had no desire or need to visit Manchester, and now every time I walk past a display flogging chocolate, I see a Twix, remember their sodding ad jingle, shudder and buy something else. And I actually used to quite like Twix*.
So ok, maybe this time it'll be different, but I very much doubt it. This will no doubt end up with the same ad-slingers running the same algorithms and creating ad-verse reactions in people who used to be their customers. I have no idea how many people are like me and develop a negative buying response after being saturation bombed by annoying jingles for products I had no need for, or no intention of buying.
So again, here's my radical idea. Let the victims decide, or at least have some control over the brands, publishers or products they're spammed with. If they don't, advertisers are just wasting their money and my time.
*I don't think this advert has been run for a good few years now, but the fact that I remember it and use it as an example of adverts generating a strong negative reaction should hopefully mean something to advertising execs. Then again, I've always been a fan of Bill Hicks. Sadly, marketing execs outlived him. Now I'm thinking about the potential of doing a DAN on Siri or Alexa so every time they hear the Twix or Intel jingle, they fire off 1,000 or so incomplete requests to those websites. Fight spam with spam?
Rather no add, TBH, but if I have searched and bought a washing machine / laptop / device from <name of supplier>, why the hell do I want more adverts targettng that ? I have just bought said item so really don't care.
I may search for an actor who we see on TV and one of us may go "where have seen see him/her before". A quick search of said program to find the actors is all I need. I don't want adverts about said program or knowing where that actor is next - bit like the "next time on ....." Fuck me, I am watching it, youi don't need to give me a preview of something I am going to watch next week.
I worked for a now long-gone telco. One day the marketing and techie types had an away day to come up with new ideas for telephony products that were innovative, liable to earn lots of revenue and upset the major ex-government monopoly. For reference, alcohol was involved.
We came up with a great system: free phone calls. No line rental, no phone charges, just a totally free phone system. But customers would have to opt in to it by complting a fairly detailed life style questionnaire. Each member of a household (except under 16 year olds) would need to complete one, and every member of the household would be given a PIN number. When you want to make a call you have to enter your PIN, The system then plays you a targeted ad. When the ad completes you get your free call. One ad per call.
We were told by a well known advert company we brought in to validate the idea and to make the ads that it was "the most evil, intrusive idea they had ever come across". We all looked rather downcast, but they then said "We just wish we had thought of it".
So, I claim my part in prior art!
I think this kind of ads fueled mobile phone subscription was tried in France at a time, around year 2000.
The fact it doesn't exist anymore is proof of the user's interest in this kind of scheme...
The fact that startups come again with this not so innovative idea proves that the ones that don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
They'll use a unique pseudo id to track users and send personalized ads. How is that different than a cookie? And how will someone be able to tailor and if the id isn't associated with them?
No thanks.
Telcos already know a lot by monitoring user traffic without consent. This is just a publicity stunt. You can opt out of personalized Google ads too and also tailor your interests. There's nothing novel here.
Yes, to some extent, of course (most kids don't buy insurance or financial planning services, most adults don't buy sugar-bomb cereal -- not that there's anything wrong with that -- and advert placement tends to reflect this), but I am hard-pressed to believe that such fine-grained targetting will yield more enough sales to justify the expense, hassle, and privacy risks (which corporations won't care about, but politicians could be made to with enough public outcry). I can not help but think that there is something deeply wrong with The System if this is what corporations feel they need to do in order to stay solvent.
Why on earth would anyone accept adverts?
It's bad enough when they mangle mobile web pages (local newspaper sites especially, those pages jump around so much as they load adverts they're almost unreadable), but to deliberately accept adverts sent to your phone sounds like the very definition of insanity...
"a pseudo-anonymous digital token that cannot be reverse-engineered."
Eh? As it is pseudonymous identifier then it is not anonymous and so it is classed as Personal Data as per GDPR.
It doesn't matter if "Brand X" has no idea who is the person that identifier "VodafoneUser1234" relates to, the fact that someone (i.e. Vodafone in that example) can determine which person is "VodafoneUser1234" means that it must be treated as Personal Data as per GDPR.
With this in mind I fail to under how it cannot be "reverse engineered" (it may be hard to do so if the likes of Vodafone have good security controls, but "hard to do" is not the same as cannot").
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