And so Facebook encroaches upon the physical world to anchor itself -- storefront businesses will come to rely on Facebook to sell personalized ads. I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook gets to access data about who purchases what and when.
If you don't think Google will be doing the same thing with LTE-enabled cars, think again. Their partnership with automakers is no small challenge, and the data gathering opportunity is massive.
Google can know that most Honda Civic drivers in Chicago (for example) park next to McDonald's, and that their phones traveled inside the restaurant -- Facebook will know only that people checked into the restaurant. It stands to reason that Honda could use this information and market the Civic as "the best" car for eating at McDonald's. Maybe Honda Civic drivers get a special McDonald's discount?
Facebook pretty much beat Foursquare to the punch on this one, but (most interestingly) Foursquare relies on OpenStreetMaps -- what does Facebook use? Is it proprietary? What is "Places Nearby"?
It has always struck me as odd that Amazon shows me ads for things I had searched for and didn't buy as though I didn't already know about those products. Seems they should perhaps show me what other people bought that searched for similar or the same products as myself.
There was some talk of this on HN a while back, where the marketing theory presented was that there is a noticeable increase in sales if the customer walks away from a sale but is then later reminded of the product they almost bought.
From my experience with retargeting it drives amazing lift in conversions. A lot of platforms allow you to do this dynamic ad placing where you show the recently added item in a cart, but not purchased.
Also, let's not forget that Amazon is obsessed with testing, I am sure they have troves of it to back up everything they are doing.
But be careful of the 'Perfect Partner / frequently bought with...' recommendations, which Amazon themselves disavow as being in any way compatible:
If two items listed as Perfect Partner / Frequently Bought Together are not compatible, Amazon.co.uk are unable to accept the return of either item for this reason.
That's because it is just doing item-based collaborative filtering, right? It works beautifully other times. I bought chopsticks once and it showed me not more chopsticks, but other accessories for sushi, etc.
Right?! God dammit Amazon, I just bought a crock pot! You know that! Why do you still serve me ads about crock pots!? The whole point of the surveillance state is to make use of all that info you have on me - frankly, it's insulting. I demand a better big brother!
AFAIR it does use Bing for translation, I'm pretety sure that I saw the "translation provided by Bing" note after translating a Facebook comment the other day.
And so Facebook encroaches upon the physical world to anchor itself
Not sure if you intended to sound so pessimistic but surely that's only a good thing? From a business perspective, this is an incredibly clever service. From a users perspective, this is an incredibly useful service.
Everyone seems to forget that Facebook users are not the consumer, they are the product being sold. If, by using this service, Facebook delivers me alarmingly specific adverts, then so be it. I've yet to be hurt by looking at an advert.
Oh, most definitely is it a good thing. Their initial foray into consumer products -- the HTC First -- was an absolute disaster. Strategically speaking I would not at all be surprised that this quells the fears surrounding Facebook's future, especially if it gains traction.
We're witnessing the end of anonymous free wifi, and nobody is better equipped for identifying users than Facebook.
Unfortunately looking isn't all that's going on. The advertiser can collect data about web browsing habits which I like to keep private. And some ads can actually hurt you: http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/05/tech/yahoo-malware-attack/
Getting served data from someone you didn't choose to send you data is never a good thing.
Agreed, it's good for business. Increase your Facebook likes by having Facebook WiFi available to your customers, and therefore, get more traffic through the door as Facebook recommends your business to their friends.
Also, you should be able to get some kind of analytic data back from Facebook. They should be able to show you that 75% of your WiFi users are female, 18-35, or that your customers change based on time, or day of the week. Therefore, if you know younger people drink more cappuccinos, and they come in more often at noon, you can put that drink front and center. Sure, you could do this without Facebook, but it's logging who's in your store for you, so no extra work on your part.
This is even better for Facebook. Oh look, John likes to login to this coffee place, maybe we can recommend coffee ads to him. Or, more importantly, why don't we allow competing coffee shops to bid on customers using their main competitor? Think about that. There's a Starbucks across the street from your cafe. If you can advertise directly to people that use that Starbucks, that's a dream, and you'd pay a premium.
Or hey, Steve (male, 35, employed, based on his Facebook profile) was just hanging out in this Honda dealership. Ford, interested in advertising your latest offers to him?
So yes, this is great for business. I don't think it's that great for consumers. You might get more WiFi hotspots, which is a plus, but you're giving up your privacy to use them. Also, if you prefer not to use Facebook, you might lose access to WiFi at your favorite locations.
>Google is beta-testing a program that uses smartphone location data to determine when consumers visit stores, according to agency executives briefed on the program by Google employees. Google then connects these store visits to Google searches conducted on smartphones in an attempt to prove that its mobile ads do, in fact, work.
Google is reportedly using location in the background (on Android and iOS) and its database of business locations (my guess) to determine when people visit stores.
>Disabling location reporting also disables Google Now features tied to location, which may be undesirable.
Just about everyone thinks this. But you're wrong. It's pretty much impossible not to be affected by advertising. Sure, you don't click on the links, but the product placement and brand awareness is not something that you can turn off!
You're not just selling your own transaction history, though--you are selling the other half of it as well.
If I'm a private business or individual, I would prefer my customers not broadcast their affiliation--because some third-party source of data could be used to drive solicitation, or target advertising, or just in general be a nuisance.
Remember, when you give up transaction history, you aren't just ratting on yourself--you're ratting on whomever you've done business with.
I am happy that Apple doesn't need to encroach on user privacy to make money, atleast for now. All this giving away stuff for free and then storing private information forever to drive ads is getting very annoying.
brjohnson, not sure why your interesting comment was deleted, but here it is.
>Google can know that most Honda Civic drivers in Chicago (for example) park next to McDonald's, and that their phones traveled inside the restaurant
This is already in beta testing.
>Google is beta-testing a program that uses smartphone location data to determine when consumers visit stores, according to agency executives briefed on the program by Google employees. Google then connects these store visits to Google searches conducted on smartphones in an attempt to prove that its mobile ads do, in fact, work. Google is reportedly using location in the background (on Android and iOS) and its database of business locations (my guess) to determine when people visit stores.
>Disabling location reporting also disables Google Now features tied to location, which may be undesirable.
Well that's an interesting one, dangling free wifi in exchange for joining/staying on Facebook. Personally, I'd just create a throwaway Facebook account to use for these.
Because it sounds like this could be tied to your mobile device, which means it uses the account you've conveniently provided in your OS profile, which would make this difficult...
I do, but I wouldn't want to pollute it with silly carrot-and-stick-derived check-ins. I'd probably just de-link my FB account on my phone and use the dummy account, then re-link later, depending on how hard up I was for internet access and the expected wait time.
Most people will just click "accept" without reading anything and status feeds will be flooded with check-ins.
> Customers simply check in to your location on Facebook to connect to free Wi-Fi
wow. not only do they get you to sign up for an account, they also get more insight into your movements/migrations by forcing you to use a feature that (for now) you can disable.
nobody says you have to use the service but we'll see how many more sell out for it.
edit: read more
How do I edit the Wi-Fi code my customers use to skip check-in?
To edit your Wi-Fi code:
Go to your Page and click Edit Page at the top of your admin panel.
Select Edit Settings from the dropdown menu.
Click on the More... tab and select Facebook Wi-Fi.
Select Require Wi-Fi code and edit your Wi-Fi code in the box.
You can also choose not to require a code by selecting Skip check-in link.
I'm confused what the end user experience is. Do you need a special app that somehow goes into your iPhone settings and adds a network? How would it work on laptops?
It probably works like many public WiFis do today: A normal "unprotected" WiFi that redirects all requests to a kind of "login" page until the user has accepted some terms etc.
I actually came across this in the wild last weekend (Phillz Coffee in Noe, SF, if anyone is interested).
On a laptop it's no different to any other landing page on a public WiFi network, except you see a Facebook branded page asking you to check-in to connect (or to skip check-in, which I did, and it connected me straight away). Putting privacy concerns aside, it was easy to use and pretty painless.
This is a pretty good idea. It solves the coordination problem of not wanting to just provide free wifi forever to anyone by requiring a token "payment". It solves the identification problem which (unfortunately) is a requirement in many jurisdictions. And it helps non-technical business owners provide decent wifi.
Meh. Just filter what you put on Facebook, or don't use it. I'm not in favor of this, and I do find it creepy, but nobody holds a gun to your head and makes you log in and post status updates recapping your day. It's a trade off - the pleasure/whatever you get from FB vs the creepiness/unpleasantness from them having your information. If the balance tips, re-evaluate using the service.
That stuff is creepy, but I always find claims of such-and-such a company stealing "my data" a little weird when that data turns out to be very public information about me such as my name, phone number and what I look like.
Post, don't post, doesn't matter. Your friends who do post will give enough information about you that not having an account wont matter.
Nothing stops someone from tagging you in a photo. Nothing will stop people from posting "Hanging with XXX @ YYY". Putting 2 and 2 together: they now know who you are, types of places you visit, and what you look like. And you never made an account. After this your choices are:
- get radical with friends about what they post about you
Filtering what you put on facebook will not protect you and not using it will not prevent facebook from profiling you but will prevent you from accessing "free" internet from this places.
What sort of problem is this exactly solving? People seem to get at Wifi no problem at all. Just wander into any Starbucks around 4PM, especially in New York or any major metro and you'll see hordes of people accessing wifi. Is it crowded? Sure? But this doesn't solve that problem. This just eliminates some login steps and provides value to the provider of the wifi.
Do you feel that trading in your privacy to simplify the login problem (and allow you to avoid actually paying the people whose space you are occupying when you use their power and wifi and restroom and hvac) is worth it? It isn't for me, and so I ask, what problem is it solving?
Exactly this. I mean, consider that anyone who wanted to could be monitoring the Wi-Fi they provide to you already. Starbucks could be crawling huge amounts of browsing data daily.
Here in the UK most 'free' hotspot providers like BT or The Cloud already require you to register and give up your personal information to get access. When I've been travelling abroad I've encountered hotspots that require a (local) mobile phone number to get access. Today I accessed a wifi network that wouldn't let me get access unless I agreed to receive marketing material. I see this as an easier way to get access, if you must you could always set up a fake Facebook profile for this.
Also I haven't seen the terms, but I'm wondering if Facebook give out direct personal information. Assuming they don't, would you rather be seen as John Smith of 14 Main Street, DOB 1990-08-23 or 18 - 24 male who likes football?
Interesting. I've never seen that in the Nordic countries or the US. Typically either the wifi is just open entirely, or there's a WPA password written on a little card by the cash register. Helsinki even has open wifi across the whole downtown, and in Denmark all the Baresso locations have open wifi (no login or password). Does the UK have laws requiring the hotspot providers to collect that information, or are they doing it of their own accord for marketing or abuse-reduction reasons?
> And it helps non-technical business owners provide decent wifi.
And a more direct, measurable reason to providing wifi. I'm sure if they don't already, they will provide metrics on checkins and impressions from them. Will help FB get future ad spend from them once they are seeing results. Very clever.
> It solves the coordination problem of not wanting to just provide free wifi forever to anyone by requiring a token "payment".
Actually, it doesn't really address that at all. It doesn't discriminate against non-customers (or people in the business next door, or people in their car outside) as long as they have Facebook accounts to check in with. The upshot is that the check-in even from a non-customer is probably worth it to the owner.
> And it helps non-technical business owners provide decent wifi.
Not sure about that, either. I think it's still incumbent on the business owner to acquire and set up one of the supported "smart" routers. Facebook's only help here probably comes in the form of some documentation.
No it's not. It's the same as answering your business phone by saying "go fuck yourself" and hanging up 1 out of 10 times.
Besides it doesn't solve the identification problem at all, as in lent credentials, fake accounts, hacked accounts and things of this ilk. It turns facebook acounts in commodities to be traded to access the internet.
An the worst part is that it's an attack on the very foundations of the Internet.
Why is this "absolutely disgusting"? It's good for Facebook, it's good for local businesses, and it completely optional for consumers. I don't see any problem here.
Just like all other "optional" features Facebook has provided in the past, they will inevitably figure out a way to hide the fact that using these hotspots checks you in, and probably spams your "friends" with a record of whatever you ate.
Also if you look at the page, you can see you can change who you share the check-in with. It's just like Facebook app integrations: you can switch the share settings to "only me" if you want a private check-in if you're worried about spamming others.
We advise a lot of small businesses and are seriously considering recommending the adoption of this if it helps them get likes to their fb page. Capturing fb likes from existing and happiest customers is a challenge for every small business.
My desktop machine is harvesting all sorts of information on me and Google can probably identify me with ease.
My mobile phone KNOWS what my contacts are from services I haven't even installed yet (WTF!).
Facebook tried to sneak in even more permissions on my Android device a couple of weeks ago (deleted it since).
It seems every time I lose more and more and more anonymity, and guess what: The 14 year old me from the past didn't care, but the older I get the more I want services to leave me the fuck alone!
Optional as in "you can't use WiFi if you're not on Facebook"? As in, with each coffee I buy here I contribute to paying your WiFi bill (both hardware and connectivity) but I cannot use it, thus having to pay a premium to get a better 3g subscription so that I can work without WiFi?
As a rule of thumb, what's good for facebook is bad for everybody else. A transnational corporation whose business is surveillance and data gathering planting devices in local businesses replacing wifi internet access by "you don't get to use the internet if you don't submit to our corporate surveillance" is not good news.
Telling a portion of your customers to go fuck themselves is not good for businesses and this is what such facebook routers are doing.
Replace facebook by NSA here and say again you don't see a problem here.
There are privacy concerns but overall I think it is a splendid idea, both for Facebook and for the businesses that choose to join.
Your run of the mill free wifi is neither secure nor private to begin with and I don't see Facebook Wifi encroaching on privacy any more than currently available free wifi.
This is a good point. Honestly the most annoying thing will be the polluting of fb feeds with checkins (something it is possible to ignore from others I believe, but not prevent from posting yourself if you check in on fb... which is the whole idea of course)
It already has this problem, and its solution was to default sort to "Top Stories" instead of "Latest Stories." A lot of accusations that it was a money-grubbing play for pay-for-performance, but I don't think they had much choice. They had to fix the problem of a few noisy people, pages or apps dominating users' feeds. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5320207
Do you honestly believe facebook won't look for and find ways to encroach on privacy more than currently available free wifi does? Their entire mission is to encroach on privacy, and now they've got you connecting to their wifi hotspots at the gynecologist's office.
Actually, it might very well happen that these Wifi networks all have the same SSID, which would likely make most devices automatically connect to them.
Even if they don't, they only ever need one connection to link your device's MAC to your username, and then detect it without ever connecting.
If this becomes widespread, the phishing potential will be huge. Everybody is used to clicking through SSL warnings, or not having SSL at all when registering with hotspots. Rogue APs redux here we come.
Any moderately busy location is already abuzz with dodgy-looking access points. It appears you have to join using an app, presumably that app will check certs against a whitelist.
This is so cool. It lets Facebook amass a massive amount of data about customer whereabouts and whatabouts. The incentive for merchants is quite compelling. However, Facebook needs to do a damn good job to convince the customers to use it.
I don't know about that. Looks at Google DNS. The convenience of circumventing regional restrictions on things like The Pirate Bay often are enough for people to convert.
I think it's going to go down rather well, assuming the shop owners have the savvy to implement it.
Really? I don't think they do at all. I know for certain that if my wife were at Starbucks and had the option of "sign onto wifi using Facebook" that she would happily do it.
First I thought that FB would provide the hardware and internet connection to the business in exchange for so much information about their customers...
But after reading their FAQ, I realize that no, FB does not provide anything. The deal is like "give me your customer info and your internet connection, I'll give you... maybe a few more likes on your page".
Eventually for consumers like me who don't use FB, it's going to be a loss of service. Some businesses who had open Wifi will now require FB check-in to provide access. Sad.
> Some businesses who had open Wifi will now require FB check-in to provide access.
Check-in isn't required to get access. My local coffee shop switched over to a Facebook WiFi point over the weekend (Phillz, who have a branch in Menlo Park so I assume must be piloting it). All that really changed for me as an end user was the old splash page got replaced with a Facebook page asking me if I'd like to check-in (along with a button to skip check in, which I used).
A lot of business do pay for more likes on their pages. These likes are much more valuable as they are actual people that walked into/near the store. It also manages their free wifi by having an expiring token https://www.facebook.com/help/287034034776458
That seems like something that can already happen or is already happening. I saw a sign for 10% off your order if you're the FourSquare mayor a few years ago.
It's tacky, but most loyalty card things feel that way to me.
And after that Facebook implements a feature so that supermarkets and other businesses don't need to give out cards anymore to track what you buy?
That sounds pretty brilliant. Then they have everything you like (or visit when there is a FB Like button) (probably also implies political views), probably your school background and places you worked and lived, places you've traveled to (FB WiFi!) or came by and your phone automatically connected with its known MAC address (more FB WiFi!), comments you posted, loads of private conversations with friends and family, and of course your entire social graph. And, if you cared to fill it out, your DoB, books you read, movies you've seen, photos of you and your friends (probably during various activities), and events you go/went to.
Lovely. Guys, the NSA can quit! All the FBI has to do is submit a data request and they're golden. Lots of laughs while they sift through your conversations, searching for what they are actually looking for.
On a more serious note, even if Facebook is not evil at all, and let's say for the moment that they aren't, that is a scary amount of information in one place. It would be a shame if anyone hacked it. Or legally obtained it. Or someone simply made a mistake and gave it out to someone impersonating law enforcement.
I'd consider advertising Facebook on a wifi hotspot as soon as they offer to pay for it by assuming liability for customers using that hotspot to share a bunch of film and TV show torrents. As long as courts keep pretending that an IP address is the same as a person, it doesn't make sense for small businesses with small pockets to offer free wifi.
It's pretty easy to limit the bitrate by client. In addition with Facebook wifi, people might be less inclined to bad behavior as they use their facebook account (granted, they could create a bogus one, but still, that makes them traceable).
But those cases have mostly been open unauthenticated wifi, no?
If I'm understanding this, this provides the courts a traceable way to go after an authenticated person (or at least, a facebook account) rather than just an IP address. I think the courts that have pretended that "IP=person" have done so because they don't have anything better.
This has been available for several months now. To answer a few questions I've seen, it uses a typical captive portal approach, so an unencrypted WiFi hotspot. Upon connection, you are redirected to an encrypted site with embedded Facebook account verification, at which point you can go wherever the Internet service lets you. The router typically has content filtering and also tracks Internet usage (bandwidth, visited sites, etc) as well as limits on visit length etc.
It is a useful option for merchants, as customers expect WiFi for free. Further, they expect it to be fast and that doesn't expose them to security risks. In other words, this gets expensive and difficult to manage. There are great solutions out there already, but they cost money - so the business case is based on marketing data. Email authentication would work, but it is difficult to gain much insight about customers, also you would need to give people access to their email server to setup their authentication. SMS doesn't work for people who don't have cell phones, or if there is poor coverage - also marketing data would be very difficult to gain. So, Social Media authentication (Facebook) turns out to be a really great option.
Obviously you have the choice not to use the service, but this isn't going away. Industry codes of conduct need to be set and I don't think they have. Privacy laws need to be understood and enforced. Retailer and coffee shop activities with this data haven't caused me much concern, but Facebook is another story.
If your business depends on WiFi (e.g. Coffee Shop), this could potentially hurt business. Only ~50-70% of US Internet users use Facebook and that is dropping.
As a business owner I'd be concerned about alienation. Facebook is far from universal and many avoid it (especially the younger crowd).
I've been in a coffee shop that does this. You can either set the password yourself or log in via facebook. Don't remember the exact workflow, but it's possible.
The main thing here that I didn't realize is that it seems there is ALWAYS an option to skip checking in, either by clicking "Skip checkin" or by getting the code from the cashier.
More likely: there will be no hybrid approach and you'll see a piece of paper tacked to the bulletin board: "House throwaway Facebook account login for those without an account."
What's interesting is that this study is an extrapolation (n=5112), but it suffers from selection bias in the sense that the people who would avoid using social networks would also like just hang up on the survey caller (I hung up on 4 this past month).
Add that to all the fluff-piece/marketroid sounding "survey results" like this:
"Read more about Facebook activity and Facebook “power users” in our report, Why most Facebook users get more than they give"
...pretty much make me wonder what questions they asked, and how much the prodded the recipients of the call to ask if they used social networking.
Surveys should state how many calls they placed successfully in order to achieve the (n) of respondents. That's information that's being thrown out.
Does the system let you create a new facebook account or only login with an existing one?
If I were to see this system in place, I'd just create a new fake facebook account. So long as the system doesn't have some draconian 'log in with an account older than 1 month with 10 friends' type thing, I don't think I'd mind, and I'm solidly in the 'facebook is evil' crowd.
Doesn't draconian normally mean excessive? It wouldn't be draconian considering you're proposing to engage in the exact abuse such a measure would be meant to fix.
In the sense that it violates a social contract? That is, WIFI access in exchange for repping this spot to your friends in however minor a fashion? In the sense of behavior that you as a service provider wish to prevent? Yeah, in all those senses, it is "abuse."
To me, "abuse" is a term with pretty strong connotations, and in some cases legal ramifications (e.g. "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act"). We're living in an environment where "exceeding authorized access" (whatever that means) carries the potential for decades-long prison sentences.
If I think about how we use that word in other contexts: "spousal abuse", "drug abuse", "sexual abuse", I find it quite a stretch to apply the same term to giving a bogus email address to a marketing firm.
I think you overlooked that they violated the social contract first by requiring you to submit to surveillance, so all I am doing is to protect me from their abuse.
So they have to give you free WiFi with no strings, stipulations, or benefit to them?
You're free to not get on the WiFi if you don't want to, and frankly if you're hopping on any public WiFi, you've more or less lost any practical claim to privacy in the first place.
That might be your opinion, but I think you are wrong. And not only that, but where I live you would even be legally wrong. If you open your access point for public use here and you then go and look at other people's traffic, that is illegal and you can go to jail for it.
And no, they don't have to give me free WiFi - they just have to not snoop on me. Just try to transfer your argument to a scenario that doesn't involve WiFi or facebook, but rather, say, tap water and as a prerequisite you have to confess belief in Allah. Illegal? Certainly not. Totally inappropriate? I would say so.
You see, this is not a legal argument, it's about ethics, about what makes a society worthwhile to live in, not about what the minimal standards are that we enforce using state power.
They are legally and morally permitted to make snooping on your Internet traffic part of what you have to agree to in order to use their WiFi.
The ability for a person to set the terms in which others interact with his private property is what makes this society worthwhile to live in. People can't force their way into your stuff without you setting conditions for that use.
And you're correct that looking at other people's traffic is illegal. It's illegal where I come from too.
There is no such thing as "ethically permitted". Ethics is not about being allowed or not being allowed to do things, but about how to do things in such a way that it's a nice way to live together. You see, the general principle that you have control over what you own is one that in general makes a nice way to live together. That does not mean, though, that any conditions you technically might be able to set also make for a nice way to live together. If you have tons of bread, say, and your neighbour is starving, you sure can set as a condition that he has to cut of his left arm before you give him bread, and he obviously is free to refuse your offer. But I hope you would not consider treating your neighbour that way to be the ethically right thing to do that would make for a generally nice way to live in society.
Oh, and by the way, there even are legal restrictions on the kinds of conditions you can set, at least where I live. If you reserve the right to cut off your neighbour's left arm after he has accepted your bread, for example, you would not be able to enforce that contract. And you wouldn't get your bread back either.
As I think that the ability to communicate privately is similary important as protection from bodily harm, I would think it would be appropriate to have similar norms as far as snooping on communication is concerned - and even where they are not legal norms, they would still make good ethical norms.
So, no, noone should be able to force you to provide access to your WiFi, but still, if you do provide access, you should go to jail if you do listen in, with contract clauses allowing you to do so being unenforcable.
I disagree. Well, strictly speaking, asking for identifying information might be OK, but storing it or communicating it to other parties is not, at least not without some justification why that is needed.
Control over your personally identifiable information is similarly important in the modern world as is control over your property, and where the two come into conflict, appropriate solutions have to be found.
https://www.google.com/search?q=draconian Has the word "excessive" in the definition. I think it's at a minimum connoted in most applications of the word. Anyway, it doesn't matter how it's defined, I was only trying to understand whether the OP meant "excessive" or just "something I don't like."
I choose the word draconian because I thought it was the best word to describe the idea I was trying to convey. If I had to rephrase, I suppose that all of 'strict', 'harsh' and 'excessive' would be fair words to use in describing it.
As to your original comment, it can be both draconian and effective. The requirement could be that in addition to your facebook account, you also must upload a photo of yourself, holding government-issued ID, standing in front of the store, etc etc. That would make it even harder to use the wifi anonymously (abuse their system), but would clearly be a draconian measure.
" … it uses a typical captive portal approach, so an unencrypted WiFi hotspot. Upon connection, you are redirected to an encrypted site with embedded Facebook account verification, at which point you can go wherever the Internet service lets you. "
I'm not eagerly awaiting the WiFi Pineapple plugin that impersonates this to phish for Facebook login credentials.
I am not really sure why so many people here are alarmed at the privacy implications. Google or Apple and your ISP / Telecom already know where you are at all times unless you are one of the very few people that don't carry a cell phone. Your ISP already knows every site that you look at from your home computer - how exactly is this different? Why is Facebook inherently any more or less trustworthy than any of these other companies? They are just happen to also know where you are when you optionally check in?
My friend owns a small tutoring business. They give out free wifi to all of their students. I think having this as an option would be a great way for them to build awareness of their local business.
http://www.zoottle.com/ does this, but gives you more control and is not limited to facebook login of course. It also gives you detailed stats (I didn't see any mention of getting visitor stats by FB wifi).
The fact that their plans appear include a certain number of Facebook likes seems very sketchy. However, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and just assume that this number is the number of users who are given the option to like your page.
Hell no. Business owners, please don't use this for wifi in your stores! I refuse to use Facebook to leave a trail of where I am physically just to use the wifi.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 239 ms ] threadIf you don't think Google will be doing the same thing with LTE-enabled cars, think again. Their partnership with automakers is no small challenge, and the data gathering opportunity is massive.
Google can know that most Honda Civic drivers in Chicago (for example) park next to McDonald's, and that their phones traveled inside the restaurant -- Facebook will know only that people checked into the restaurant. It stands to reason that Honda could use this information and market the Civic as "the best" car for eating at McDonald's. Maybe Honda Civic drivers get a special McDonald's discount?
Facebook pretty much beat Foursquare to the punch on this one, but (most interestingly) Foursquare relies on OpenStreetMaps -- what does Facebook use? Is it proprietary? What is "Places Nearby"?
The upside would be that you at least wouldn't keep seeing ads for things that you just purchased, as Facebook would know that you already have them.
Kind of a crappy silver lining, I know.
Also, let's not forget that Amazon is obsessed with testing, I am sure they have troves of it to back up everything they are doing.
Reminding me about the thing I was about to buy is very likely to get me to buy it in those cases.
If two items listed as Perfect Partner / Frequently Bought Together are not compatible, Amazon.co.uk are unable to accept the return of either item for this reason.
Damnit Amazon I just built one! How many processors do you think a single gaming PC can fit?!
On maps on Facebook, the small text says "(C) Microsoft (C) Nokia".
Reminded me of this limited edition like counter, called Fliike.
http://www.smiirl.com/
> 2. Connect your _Fliike_ to the “Smiirl” Wi-Fi network and open your browser on any page. Set up your Wi-Fi network and password.
(emphasis added). They should s/Fliike/device/ or s/Fliike/laptop/ for this to make any sense.
Not sure if you intended to sound so pessimistic but surely that's only a good thing? From a business perspective, this is an incredibly clever service. From a users perspective, this is an incredibly useful service.
Everyone seems to forget that Facebook users are not the consumer, they are the product being sold. If, by using this service, Facebook delivers me alarmingly specific adverts, then so be it. I've yet to be hurt by looking at an advert.
We're witnessing the end of anonymous free wifi, and nobody is better equipped for identifying users than Facebook.
Getting served data from someone you didn't choose to send you data is never a good thing.
Also, you should be able to get some kind of analytic data back from Facebook. They should be able to show you that 75% of your WiFi users are female, 18-35, or that your customers change based on time, or day of the week. Therefore, if you know younger people drink more cappuccinos, and they come in more often at noon, you can put that drink front and center. Sure, you could do this without Facebook, but it's logging who's in your store for you, so no extra work on your part.
This is even better for Facebook. Oh look, John likes to login to this coffee place, maybe we can recommend coffee ads to him. Or, more importantly, why don't we allow competing coffee shops to bid on customers using their main competitor? Think about that. There's a Starbucks across the street from your cafe. If you can advertise directly to people that use that Starbucks, that's a dream, and you'd pay a premium.
Or hey, Steve (male, 35, employed, based on his Facebook profile) was just hanging out in this Honda dealership. Ford, interested in advertising your latest offers to him?
So yes, this is great for business. I don't think it's that great for consumers. You might get more WiFi hotspots, which is a plus, but you're giving up your privacy to use them. Also, if you prefer not to use Facebook, you might lose access to WiFi at your favorite locations.
No, no it is not. I am a wifi user, and this is not useful to me in the slightest.
This is already in beta testing.
http://marketingland.com/google-quietly-testing-offline-stor...
>Google is beta-testing a program that uses smartphone location data to determine when consumers visit stores, according to agency executives briefed on the program by Google employees. Google then connects these store visits to Google searches conducted on smartphones in an attempt to prove that its mobile ads do, in fact, work. Google is reportedly using location in the background (on Android and iOS) and its database of business locations (my guess) to determine when people visit stores.
>Disabling location reporting also disables Google Now features tied to location, which may be undesirable.
It also explains why they killed Skyhook. http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-la...
I, for one, welcome our gigabit overlords if only for the fact that they have Comcast, Cox, Time Warner, etc shaking in their boots.
I would sell all my transaction history for $5/month. Why should I care if their ads are getting better when I never pay attention to ads?
Just about everyone thinks this. But you're wrong. It's pretty much impossible not to be affected by advertising. Sure, you don't click on the links, but the product placement and brand awareness is not something that you can turn off!
If I'm a private business or individual, I would prefer my customers not broadcast their affiliation--because some third-party source of data could be used to drive solicitation, or target advertising, or just in general be a nuisance.
Remember, when you give up transaction history, you aren't just ratting on yourself--you're ratting on whomever you've done business with.
Also you don't understand how profiling works, do you ? A visible effect is ads, but it's not the only one and there are invisible effects. See NSA, crackers and http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-pri...
>Google can know that most Honda Civic drivers in Chicago (for example) park next to McDonald's, and that their phones traveled inside the restaurant This is already in beta testing.
http://marketingland.com/google-quietly-testing-offline-stor...
>Google is beta-testing a program that uses smartphone location data to determine when consumers visit stores, according to agency executives briefed on the program by Google employees. Google then connects these store visits to Google searches conducted on smartphones in an attempt to prove that its mobile ads do, in fact, work. Google is reportedly using location in the background (on Android and iOS) and its database of business locations (my guess) to determine when people visit stores.
>Disabling location reporting also disables Google Now features tied to location, which may be undesirable.
It also explains why they killed Skyhook. http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-la...
Yeah, beginning to want off this planet.
There might be a horror scenario in there somewhere, but this isn't it :-)
Because it sounds like this could be tied to your mobile device, which means it uses the account you've conveniently provided in your OS profile, which would make this difficult...
I probably wouldn't bother at all if it meant I had to remain logged in or connected to Facebook on my device all the time though.
Most people will just click "accept" without reading anything and status feeds will be flooded with check-ins.
wow. not only do they get you to sign up for an account, they also get more insight into your movements/migrations by forcing you to use a feature that (for now) you can disable.
nobody says you have to use the service but we'll see how many more sell out for it.
edit: read more
How do I edit the Wi-Fi code my customers use to skip check-in?
To edit your Wi-Fi code:
Go to your Page and click Edit Page at the top of your admin panel.
Select Edit Settings from the dropdown menu.
Click on the More... tab and select Facebook Wi-Fi.
Select Require Wi-Fi code and edit your Wi-Fi code in the box.
You can also choose not to require a code by selecting Skip check-in link.
Click Save Settings.
For our business use case, this is perfect.
Having a facebook only "free" internet is doing just that.
"Dumbfucks".
On a laptop it's no different to any other landing page on a public WiFi network, except you see a Facebook branded page asking you to check-in to connect (or to skip check-in, which I did, and it connected me straight away). Putting privacy concerns aside, it was easy to use and pretty painless.
http://www.zdnet.com/firm-facebooks-shadow-profiles-are-frig...
Nothing stops someone from tagging you in a photo. Nothing will stop people from posting "Hanging with XXX @ YYY". Putting 2 and 2 together: they now know who you are, types of places you visit, and what you look like. And you never made an account. After this your choices are:
- get radical with friends about what they post about you
- give in and use facebook
- stop hanging out with your friends
Do you feel that trading in your privacy to simplify the login problem (and allow you to avoid actually paying the people whose space you are occupying when you use their power and wifi and restroom and hvac) is worth it? It isn't for me, and so I ask, what problem is it solving?
Not everyone is a Hacker News reader.
Also I haven't seen the terms, but I'm wondering if Facebook give out direct personal information. Assuming they don't, would you rather be seen as John Smith of 14 Main Street, DOB 1990-08-23 or 18 - 24 male who likes football?
And a more direct, measurable reason to providing wifi. I'm sure if they don't already, they will provide metrics on checkins and impressions from them. Will help FB get future ad spend from them once they are seeing results. Very clever.
Actually, it doesn't really address that at all. It doesn't discriminate against non-customers (or people in the business next door, or people in their car outside) as long as they have Facebook accounts to check in with. The upshot is that the check-in even from a non-customer is probably worth it to the owner.
> And it helps non-technical business owners provide decent wifi.
Not sure about that, either. I think it's still incumbent on the business owner to acquire and set up one of the supported "smart" routers. Facebook's only help here probably comes in the form of some documentation.
Besides it doesn't solve the identification problem at all, as in lent credentials, fake accounts, hacked accounts and things of this ilk. It turns facebook acounts in commodities to be traded to access the internet.
An the worst part is that it's an attack on the very foundations of the Internet.
Using the hotspots doesn't check you in; checking in allows you to use the hotspot. Seriously, read the page before spewing FUD.
My desktop machine is harvesting all sorts of information on me and Google can probably identify me with ease.
My mobile phone KNOWS what my contacts are from services I haven't even installed yet (WTF!).
Facebook tried to sneak in even more permissions on my Android device a couple of weeks ago (deleted it since).
It seems every time I lose more and more and more anonymity, and guess what: The 14 year old me from the past didn't care, but the older I get the more I want services to leave me the fuck alone!
Optional as in "you can't use WiFi if you're not on Facebook"? As in, with each coffee I buy here I contribute to paying your WiFi bill (both hardware and connectivity) but I cannot use it, thus having to pay a premium to get a better 3g subscription so that I can work without WiFi?
Your run of the mill free wifi is neither secure nor private to begin with and I don't see Facebook Wifi encroaching on privacy any more than currently available free wifi.
Then again, considering your username I guess you aren't a fan of Facebook at all.
How do you figure?
Nobody is forcing you to check in at your gynecologist's office, which is something you can already do, if you're into that kind of oversharing
Even if they don't, they only ever need one connection to link your device's MAC to your username, and then detect it without ever connecting.
I think it's going to go down rather well, assuming the shop owners have the savvy to implement it.
But after reading their FAQ, I realize that no, FB does not provide anything. The deal is like "give me your customer info and your internet connection, I'll give you... maybe a few more likes on your page".
Eventually for consumers like me who don't use FB, it's going to be a loss of service. Some businesses who had open Wifi will now require FB check-in to provide access. Sad.
Check-in isn't required to get access. My local coffee shop switched over to a Facebook WiFi point over the weekend (Phillz, who have a branch in Menlo Park so I assume must be piloting it). All that really changed for me as an end user was the old splash page got replaced with a Facebook page asking me if I'd like to check-in (along with a button to skip check in, which I used).
Even if that's the case, I'm afraid this will be tempting for the business to require check-in. Let's see if Phillz changes their settings!
Pretty sure the average person would rather "check in" via Facebook than using the current "click this checkbox and continue".
People trust and like Facebook. They don't trust or like GogoBoingo Wireless.
They've been around since 2001, Facebook since 2004.
It's tacky, but most loyalty card things feel that way to me.
That sounds pretty brilliant. Then they have everything you like (or visit when there is a FB Like button) (probably also implies political views), probably your school background and places you worked and lived, places you've traveled to (FB WiFi!) or came by and your phone automatically connected with its known MAC address (more FB WiFi!), comments you posted, loads of private conversations with friends and family, and of course your entire social graph. And, if you cared to fill it out, your DoB, books you read, movies you've seen, photos of you and your friends (probably during various activities), and events you go/went to.
Lovely. Guys, the NSA can quit! All the FBI has to do is submit a data request and they're golden. Lots of laughs while they sift through your conversations, searching for what they are actually looking for.
On a more serious note, even if Facebook is not evil at all, and let's say for the moment that they aren't, that is a scary amount of information in one place. It would be a shame if anyone hacked it. Or legally obtained it. Or someone simply made a mistake and gave it out to someone impersonating law enforcement.
If I'm understanding this, this provides the courts a traceable way to go after an authenticated person (or at least, a facebook account) rather than just an IP address. I think the courts that have pretended that "IP=person" have done so because they don't have anything better.
It is a useful option for merchants, as customers expect WiFi for free. Further, they expect it to be fast and that doesn't expose them to security risks. In other words, this gets expensive and difficult to manage. There are great solutions out there already, but they cost money - so the business case is based on marketing data. Email authentication would work, but it is difficult to gain much insight about customers, also you would need to give people access to their email server to setup their authentication. SMS doesn't work for people who don't have cell phones, or if there is poor coverage - also marketing data would be very difficult to gain. So, Social Media authentication (Facebook) turns out to be a really great option.
Obviously you have the choice not to use the service, but this isn't going away. Industry codes of conduct need to be set and I don't think they have. Privacy laws need to be understood and enforced. Retailer and coffee shop activities with this data haven't caused me much concern, but Facebook is another story.
As a business owner I'd be concerned about alienation. Facebook is far from universal and many avoid it (especially the younger crowd).
Add that to all the fluff-piece/marketroid sounding "survey results" like this:
"Read more about Facebook activity and Facebook “power users” in our report, Why most Facebook users get more than they give"
...pretty much make me wonder what questions they asked, and how much the prodded the recipients of the call to ask if they used social networking.
Surveys should state how many calls they placed successfully in order to achieve the (n) of respondents. That's information that's being thrown out.
If I were to see this system in place, I'd just create a new fake facebook account. So long as the system doesn't have some draconian 'log in with an account older than 1 month with 10 friends' type thing, I don't think I'd mind, and I'm solidly in the 'facebook is evil' crowd.
If I think about how we use that word in other contexts: "spousal abuse", "drug abuse", "sexual abuse", I find it quite a stretch to apply the same term to giving a bogus email address to a marketing firm.
You're free to not get on the WiFi if you don't want to, and frankly if you're hopping on any public WiFi, you've more or less lost any practical claim to privacy in the first place.
And no, they don't have to give me free WiFi - they just have to not snoop on me. Just try to transfer your argument to a scenario that doesn't involve WiFi or facebook, but rather, say, tap water and as a prerequisite you have to confess belief in Allah. Illegal? Certainly not. Totally inappropriate? I would say so.
You see, this is not a legal argument, it's about ethics, about what makes a society worthwhile to live in, not about what the minimal standards are that we enforce using state power.
The ability for a person to set the terms in which others interact with his private property is what makes this society worthwhile to live in. People can't force their way into your stuff without you setting conditions for that use.
And you're correct that looking at other people's traffic is illegal. It's illegal where I come from too.
So is speeding.
Oh, and by the way, there even are legal restrictions on the kinds of conditions you can set, at least where I live. If you reserve the right to cut off your neighbour's left arm after he has accepted your bread, for example, you would not be able to enforce that contract. And you wouldn't get your bread back either.
As I think that the ability to communicate privately is similary important as protection from bodily harm, I would think it would be appropriate to have similar norms as far as snooping on communication is concerned - and even where they are not legal norms, they would still make good ethical norms.
So, no, noone should be able to force you to provide access to your WiFi, but still, if you do provide access, you should go to jail if you do listen in, with contract clauses allowing you to do so being unenforcable.
And yes, people should be able to force you to provide your information in order to access their private property.
Control over your personally identifiable information is similarly important in the modern world as is control over your property, and where the two come into conflict, appropriate solutions have to be found.
It is not immoral to request someone's property as a form of payment for use of a private service.
As to your original comment, it can be both draconian and effective. The requirement could be that in addition to your facebook account, you also must upload a photo of yourself, holding government-issued ID, standing in front of the store, etc etc. That would make it even harder to use the wifi anonymously (abuse their system), but would clearly be a draconian measure.
I'm not eagerly awaiting the WiFi Pineapple plugin that impersonates this to phish for Facebook login credentials.
Is another free hotspot worth giving up your data?
It would to me if they made wifi ubiquitous and drop dead easy to use.
That said, I don't think wifi is in the plans of the future. Eventually some other constant data connection will take its place.