by etruong42 on 2/29/16, 5:13 PM with 64 comments
by dsmithatx on 2/29/16, 6:37 PM
Basically what I make of this is that cell phone companies (for sure AT&T) have already agreed to sell Clear Channel your location data. Do they already disseminate this information out to anyone who is willing to pay for it or is this new?
Edit - I found they do and below are there are opt out links for different cell providers.
http://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-disable-data-tracking-on-at...
by typeiierror on 2/29/16, 6:57 PM
1) AT&T cell tower data. All major US carriers collect aggregate movement data, and some have productized it (check out Grandata and Streetlight Data if you're interested). They're likely providing something like a persons count by daypart to Clear Channel at some geography, likely census block group. AT&T likely provides course demographics as well (either by purchasing them from a data broker like Experian or Epsilon) or by looking up the aggregate demo characteristics reported by the US Census for the block group of the subscribers household. As an aside, current gen (4G) cell tower data isn't very precise - maybe 100m accuracy or worse.
2) Placed opt in GPS panel data. There are many market research companies that pay consumer run location tracking apps (mFour and Instantly are other examples). Placed is probably the biggest (~1mm panelists).
3) PlaceIQ mobile ad server GPS data. PlaceIQ, xAd, Factual, Verve, Ninth Decimal...all of these companies read the lat / long coordinates provided by mobile SSPs in mobile RTB bid stream to create location segment profiles associated with your phone's Ad ID. The data isn't very accurate (mobile ad fraud is a problem...an app change the GPS coord from rural Kansas to downtown Manhattan to juice their CPM in an auction; also, most of the GPS used for buying mobile inventory is via "LastKnownLocation" apis which are notoriously inaccurate). These guys generally use their data to group your Ad ID into a segment (if they see you at a Wendy's, they'll sell your Ad ID to mobile RTB bidders as a "Frequent Wendy's eater"). Clear Channel is probably using this to see if exposure to a billboard caused you to make a purchase that they can attribute to your Ad ID (say via the advertisers CRM database), or to augment the demo data from AT&T with demo segments they can buy from mobile data exchanges.
[i]: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160229005959/en/Clea...
by bsenftner on 2/29/16, 6:23 PM
by jbob2000 on 2/29/16, 6:20 PM
by elorant on 2/29/16, 5:55 PM
by betterturkey on 2/29/16, 6:23 PM
So outdoor advertisers can potentially pixel customers who see an "impression" like they do for online ads and track conversion behavior if they ultimately walk into a store?
The article doesn't speak much to this, but what opt-in permission would a user give to actually allow their location to constantly be relayed to advertisers to make this possible? Would Target need to hide this in their T&C of their app and then match it against the billboard's data on an advertiser-by-advertiser basis...?
by stegosaurus on 3/1/16, 12:52 AM
If I walk through a city center and I'm bombarded with unavoidable billboards, it's just not good for my brain. I don't want it, it's pollution, poison. I would love a real-life ad blocker for public transport, for example.
So what happens next? When do cities, local governments (London boroughs, say) start to care? Do they ever start to care that commutes, everyday lives of citizens are being destroyed (is there a clear enough causal link)?
Or do we have to wait until people like me start moving out of the city because they don't want to see bollocks flashing lights everywhere, they don't want to walk through a Minority Report like scene of pervasive unavoidable attention grabbers?
by y04nn on 2/29/16, 6:18 PM
by tpowell on 2/29/16, 6:37 PM
"AT&T provides valuable insights to businesses without compromising consumer privacy. AT&T Data Patterns does not share individual data – only counts. For instance, a report might tell what percentage of passersby is males aged 20-30. Consumers are always able to opt-out of having their anonymous, aggregated information used at att.com/cmpchoice."
by chinathrow on 2/29/16, 7:37 PM
What a sick world this has become.
by DanBC on 2/29/16, 9:05 PM
https://iconewsblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/how-shops-can-u...
by cfontes on 2/29/16, 6:18 PM
I think it's inevitable but it's not nice to know it's happening.
by ap22213 on 3/1/16, 2:36 AM
by jhanschoo on 3/1/16, 7:20 AM
by dansorensen712 on 3/1/16, 6:20 PM
by steve_taylor on 2/29/16, 11:56 PM
by joesmo on 2/29/16, 6:50 PM
No, that's a lie. GPS data is not available by default and can be controlled by the user. It's certainly not something that has been available for years to advertisers. It sounds like despite any permissions you may refuse in your OS/apps that AT&T will sell your data regardless (unless you opt out). Also, I know it's the NYT, but there's no such thing as anonymizing data. This has been shown over and over again that pretty much any data can be de-anonymized rather easily.
by chejazi on 2/29/16, 8:00 PM
*Excludes Facebook Ads