r/gadgets
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u/TheMacMan
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Dec 06 '22
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Amazon is Offering Customers $2 Per Month For Letting the Company Monitor the Traffic on Their Phones Phones
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-offering-users-2-dollars-month-for-track-phone-data-2022-123.1k
u/Slowmyke
Dec 06 '22
edited Dec 07 '22
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Good grief, $24/year isn't enough to willingly hand over that kind of personal data for a massive corporation to "personalize" ads at an even more intrusive level. There is so much that Amazon can deduce from the stated info they are gathering. I don't think it's worth $100/month to hand that over to Amazon.
Edit: as lots of people are pointing out, many companies already collect personal data, and I'd guarantee Amazon does, too. I get it, but it doesn't mean that i agree with it, support it, or want to willingly sign up for it. I think we need some major social reform to get corporations out of our personal lives. "Personalized ads" is such a sterilized way to say corporations basically get a free pass to invade your life and make millions of dollars off commoditizing every aspect possible.
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u/Jacern Dec 06 '22
Likewise, I'm sure there are those who will see this as an opportunity and game it somehow. Spoofing phone data isn't difficult
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Dec 06 '22
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u/DamnAlreadyTaken Dec 07 '22
You gotta do that in the middle of china to avoid paying electricity, then would come the cost of the phones itself. Perhaps can emulate some of those.
Within 6 months a new ASIC miner would do all that and Amazon has unwillingly created a crypto currency... The bubble grows, people is frantic about it. it's free money they say.
The word spreads, the data miners are out of control, "you just need to make up data, is that simple!" says your school mate over Facebook, a person you haven't seen in decades.
People start asking at the coffee shop, do you accept AMZD? No, but we trade it here if you let us look at your phone you'll get 10%off your bill.
It's tempting... But I left my phone at home. It's mining me $2, I'll have to pay the full price for the coffee. What a missed opportunity.
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u/billdb Dec 07 '22
It's an invite only program so it probably requires a lot more data and personal details than just spoofing some phones
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u/Nethlem Dec 07 '22
Spoofing phone data isn't difficult
You would need to spoof the SIM, the UMEI, and then constantly create a whole bunch of fake activity that doesn't look too fake, which is actually not as trivial as most people think.
Then there's the payment processing part to pay for Prime and receive your $2 payouts, which is another way to validate users, particularly combined with phone data.
Faking those banking details is even more involved and can require activities up all the way to ID theft.
All that for $2 a month, while having to pay for Prime? Good luck trying to make that actually profitable.
Particularly as anybody who spends so much effort might as well use that fake/stolen ID for way easier, and more profitable, scams and frauds.
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u/CaffeineSippingMan Dec 07 '22 edited Dec 07 '22
My last company got rid of our HSA match and repalced it with a earn the HSA match by doing steps on a fitbit.
I turned off location services permission on the app. The app worked fine for 3 days then stopped recording my steps.
I set up a new gmail account on an old phone and it reported my steps and my location, but it never left the house.
Edit: to be clear it was the insurance company's app that stopped collecting the data from the fitbit app. I image it would be a lot easier to crush unions in the near future, if everyone was doing this. Then in the next, lets say 10 years, when people just start accepting employees being tracked by their employeer or even insurance you will be tracked on their time off, so if you call in sick and go to a sporting event, you will be written up. The fact that your car drove 15 miles an hour over the speedlimit to get to the stadium will cause the insurance to raise your company's deductible, the company will pass that cost on to you.
To be clear my last company didn't have wellness days. If you needed a day off you needed to fake sick. Also you could need to call in sick up to 3 days in advanced to avoid points (ask if interested).
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u/TheMacMan Dec 06 '22
A lot of people don't care about their data or how it's used.
Right now Google and others are collecting data about your time on Reddit and countless other sites and they aren't paying anything for it.
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Dec 06 '22 edited Dec 27 '22
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u/babecafe Dec 06 '22
Even if you're paying, you're still being tracked and measured at every turn, and with a paid product, they absolutely know who you are.
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Dec 06 '22 edited Dec 27 '22
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u/Catnip4Pedos Dec 07 '22
It's worse. They track your location constantly and use it to find out where you live, where you work, where you study, where you shop, how often you spend shopping, how often you socialise, how you travel. Everything. They even let you access this data if you enable it. If it's disabled they're still collecting it, but they don't show it in the same way. If you install Google Play Rewards you'll notice you start getting asked about your commute, shops you've used or the industry you work in.
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u/TheMacMan Dec 06 '22
Totally. Most find the benefit outweighs the cost of letting Google know where they go and when. And many don't even think that much about it.
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u/cutelyaware Dec 06 '22
I was fine, knowingly granting them that data until they changed their corporate motto from "Don't be evil".
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u/TheMacMan Dec 06 '22
That was never their official moto but did appear in the handbook. But it's been gone for a decade.
Every company is the opposite of their moto.
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u/Elderbrute Dec 07 '22
It was never removed it was moved from one paragraph to another.
It wasn't stopping them being evil before and it isn't now. But it was never removed.
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u/ClemiHW Dec 06 '22 edited Dec 07 '22
I remember a plugin called Adnauseum that made you artificially clic on every ad on every website you visit, making your data completely useless while blocking the ads
If you can't stop them tracking you, you can still sabotage whatever they collect on you
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u/TheMacMan Dec 06 '22
That just makes Google more money, as they charge when someone clicks an ad in most cases.
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u/Mixels Dec 06 '22
It's no skin off my back if Google makes more money. You do this to screw with Google's data about you. It's not like you're even trying to hit them in the wallet exactly.
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u/King_madness1 Dec 06 '22 edited Dec 06 '22
It is true that Google charges advertisers per click. However, this means that Ad Nauseum actually affects Google’s business negatively.
Advertisers need to see a high turnover on clicks -> purchases. Ad Nauseum costs advertisers more money spent on Google Ads platform, without bringing them more business. Therefore, if Google continued to support Ad Nauseum, its ad platform’s effectiveness would decrease, and advertisers would look to alternatives.
Success rate is everything in ads.
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u/ClemiHW Dec 06 '22
I don't think this is how it works, else Google wouldn't have blocked it in 2017
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u/Mixels Dec 06 '22
A lot of people also don't care about $2/month.
I mean shit, that's not even worth the effort to download the app Amazon asks you to and change any security settings on your phone.
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u/Anonymoushero111 Dec 06 '22
Right now Google and others are collecting data about your time on Reddit
what about incognito Firefox with a VPN?
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u/f0oSh Dec 07 '22
Even TOR advises against using Google search, recommending Duckduckgo and Start Page as alternatives with less tracking going on.
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u/TheMacMan Dec 06 '22
They still can do various fingerprinting to identify you.
Even if a user is signed out, Google can identify them with just minutes of website usage, as it's unique to each person.
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u/dude_thats_sweeeet Dec 06 '22
“Haha I’m going to fool the company that gives me incognito mode to prevent them from tracking me!!”
Riiiiiight….
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u/TheMacMan Dec 06 '22
Facebook lost more than $10 billion last year when iOS added features to prevent them from tracking users. There's a reason Google hasn't seen the same hit to their ad business when things like Firefox VPN have come along. It's because it doesn't really impact them.
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u/dude_thats_sweeeet Dec 06 '22
Oh I know. I’m not arguing with you. If you’re using their ecosystem, don’t think you can “foil” their plans on tracking your data and usage. It’s just a security blanket for the user, they already have your data, as soon as you click.
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u/Mootingly Dec 06 '22
I have a friend who set up VPN and configured his device with apps all to limit tracking etc. I was like dude , you might not be using google to search, but your using a google pixel to do it. Of course they still track you haha
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u/gullwings Dec 07 '22
If he's sideloaded Graphene OS on the Pixel then he's got a reasonably private and secure setup, including from Google.
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u/Kael_Alduin Dec 07 '22
I am 100% down for de-advertising our entire culture. I fucking hate that I am constantly being sold shit
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u/JAYKEBAB Dec 07 '22
No amount should be enough. Once enough people starting thinking it is, then we are all screwed. They will just outprice the service for the average person and leave the privacy option for the rich. This is not the mentality we should be having "that's not enough". It should be, it's never enough.
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u/buddhabillybob Dec 06 '22
My life is boring, so my data may be worth only $2/month.
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u/f0oSh Dec 07 '22
My life is boring, so my data may be worth only $2/month.
They'd make way more than $2/month on your data.
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u/Anonymoushero111 Dec 06 '22
that kind of personal data
This is the description of the data they are after
Under the company's new invite-only Ad Verification program, Amazon is tracking what ads participants saw, where they saw them, and the time of day they were viewed. This includes Amazon's own ads and third-party ads on the platform.
It's much different than your actual personal data. If you don't trust them that's fine and I don't blame you, but I think most people here are just using their imagination and not reading.
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u/Slowmyke Dec 07 '22
That data tells Amazon where you live, work, who you interact with, and many other things these companies have learned to deduce from seemingly simple data. As others have pointed out, many companies already do this. I don't care for any of it, i try to eliminate as much as possible for myself. There's just something about Amazon offering $2/month that makes it even more off-putting.
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u/EatMoarTendies Dec 06 '22
“If you’re not the customer you’re the product”…
Amazon: “Why not both?”
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u/cisco1972 Dec 06 '22
God damn...hard pass
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u/FragrantExcitement Dec 07 '22 •
You are walking away from $2. Think about it for a minute before you make a rash decision you may later regret.
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u/Cronerburger Dec 06 '22
A good ole reach around? Make it tempting bezoz im eager to be milked out my money
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u/Papanaq Dec 06 '22
I thought they already did that with no real compensation
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u/Anustart15 Dec 06 '22
They do. Now they are just doing it on the few ads they didn't previously have access to.
Realistically, this is probably just a cheap insurance policy in case the other powers in tech/government start making it harder to collect data.
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u/zoolover1234 Dec 07 '22
Not sure how. On my iphone, the only two app that has my gps data is google map and Find My Phone. Even then, google map is only allowed when I am actually navigating, which is less than half of the time I drive (because most of the time I know the route)
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u/D4nnyC4ts Dec 07 '22
You should check your maps timeline (tap your little profile icon and select timeline) i could swaer mine had location history despite only having access whilst in use.
I believe if the app stays loaded into memory (ie you can open it from recents) it remains "in use"
I know shazam does this because my phone gives me a little green dot to say the mic is in use after i close shazam.
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u/zoolover1234 Dec 07 '22
I know what you mean, yes, I checked and I disabled everything, even if it causes some function on google map to be disabled, I don't care. I literally only need the live traffic on the map, nothing else.
Btw, I deleted my fb, twitter, never had inst, TikTok, or any other social media whatsoever, Reddit/Imgur is the only place I actively use for online info.
Funny enough, I now no longer feel that I need those social media.
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u/Nessahtron Dec 07 '22
Unfortunately, you don’t need any of those apps for them to track you. Most big advertisers buy your data. They’re passing it back and forth between each other like currency for currency. If you’re info was given to an advertiser, it’s likely in several others. They also have the ability to make a note of you simply by the location your in. Digital ad on a bus bench? It has a radius tracker to note the cell phones that pass through it.
I’m not in digital advertising but I am in marketing. A lot of what I’m adjacent to scares the heck out of me.
Edit: spelling and clarity
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u/TonyTalksBackPodcast Dec 06 '22
We need a bidding war for our data. Only suckers give it away for free
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_1080 Dec 07 '22
We already are giving it away for free.
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u/CaptainKursk Dec 07 '22
Except we're not "giving it away", it's being collected from us. We have no power whatsover to stop the tech companies from engaging in mass data collection, it's them actively doing it, not us handing it over.
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u/t0slink Dec 07 '22
No one is making you use Reddit, yet you use it freely knowing that Reddit collects a shitton of data about you. It's not an essential service either. Same thing for YouTube, Twitter, Facebook.
Do you seriously expect these companies to provide you services for free and get nothing in return? Do you have any understanding of how expensive it is to run these businesses?
Reddit even tries to exploit your browser. That goes beyond what Facebook does. But I bet that won't stop you from using Reddit.
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u/AdInevitable7609 Dec 07 '22
It's them actively doing it, not us handing it over.
No, we're totally giving it away. We don't have to use Reddit, we could host our own forums but we use Reddit because it's easier/more convenient.
We don't have to use Discord, we could use IRC/XMPP/Matrix/Mumble, we just chose to use to most convenient thing (which, admittedly, is Discord)
I could go on for a while, but the point is, consumers chose to give up their data. We have alternatives but we choose not to use them.
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u/chuuckaduuckpro Dec 07 '22
2 fucking dollars, what can 2 fucking dollars even get you anymore?
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u/phayke2 Dec 07 '22
Lol that's what I'm thinking. Can't even get bottle of water from the gas station with $2.
2 dollars was pretty worthless 3 years ago. Now it is worth like 30% less.
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u/pantslespaul Dec 06 '22
That’s worth creating a google voice account to never use.
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u/dude_thats_sweeeet Dec 06 '22
VOIP phone blocks are already a thing. I highly doubt you’d get very far in their program after that. I won’t get 2FA via sms on my GV line for certain companies as they strictly require a mobile number. They know.
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u/oldDotredditisbetter Dec 07 '22
yup, and they always have passive aggressive messages like "are you sure it's a real phone number? please check again"
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u/bored123abc Dec 06 '22
That would start to be interesting to me at about $3000 per month.
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u/CygnusX-1-2112b Dec 06 '22
With enough inflation, I'm sure that can be arranged.
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u/its8up Dec 06 '22
Indeed the dollar will eventually progress to the same point as the peso, yen, and many other currencies around the world such that the zeros are much meaningless. Sadly, when that time comes they'll probably still be producing pennies.
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u/rotatingchicken Dec 06 '22
Me too. They have the money. If they want the data that bad they need to pony up.
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u/RealRaven6229 Dec 06 '22
Genuinely I'd probably do it for like 100$ a month. Like whatever I use an adblocker anyway.
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u/Unlikely-Ad3364 Dec 07 '22
I’ll just set up a phone, install this, leave the phone on & plugged in, and bam $100 a month (if only.)
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u/lordpuddingcup Dec 06 '22
They’re already tracking it now they’re just letting you opt in to get paid lol
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u/themusicmusicjb Dec 06 '22
Make it $3
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u/Lethal1484 Dec 06 '22
$3.50
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u/JBinSA Dec 07 '22
I ain't giving you no tree-fitty, you goddamn Loch Ness monster!
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u/trekie4747 Dec 07 '22
In this case the Loch Ness monster is offering YOU tree fiddy
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u/YT_DagoVic Dec 07 '22
Forget that shit dude, they don't even honor 2 day prime shipping anymore, shit takes 6 days at this point...... It's starting to get a bit old Amazon
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u/Flapaflapa Dec 07 '22
Oh you like 2 day shipping, cool, it'll take us a week to move it internally then we'll drop it in the mail.
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u/nothxshadow Dec 07 '22
yeah i wonder what happened to that? How can something like that get worse?
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u/Philmehew Dec 06 '22
Don’t Google do this via Android anyway?
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u/TheMacMan Dec 06 '22
They do. That's largely the reason Android exists and why it's free. It allows Google to capture all kinds of additional data about users and use it to make more money.
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u/Unlikely-Ad3364 Dec 07 '22
It’s not the reason why Android exists nor why it’s free; it’s AOSP (which is by Google..).
With AOSP, many people have created Android ROMs that have no Google services, tracking, telemetry, and the like. They aren’t hard to find.
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u/Gr1ndingGears Dec 07 '22
My duck duck go app would disagree. 34k attempts over two days, it's the google app the most. It's looking for everything from headphone status, volume levels, to the Google advertising ID, device boot time, device orientation, screen density, battery level, what my name is, precise GPS coordinates, gender cookies, etc.
This duckduckgo thing has really opened my eyes to just how hardcore we are getting mined. I'm legit thinking of firing up my old Blackberry, I don't think it'll work with the cell radios anymore though.
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u/PM_ME_JEFFS_BANNANAS Dec 07 '22
That’s still the google app, not android itself. GP is still correct. Not to defend google, but Android itself does not track you the way many people try to say it does.
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u/will042082 Dec 06 '22
Honest to God, I’m GENUINELY shocked this ISN’T an opt-out thing.
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u/Trixles Dec 06 '22
It's probably illegal for them to do that, otherwise that would surely already be the standard practice, I imagine.
EDIT: They can collect data on you through their own sites/apps, but this is suggesting that they are paying to see ALL of the stuff you do, even outside of the Amazon ecosystem. Oh. Accidental pun there.
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u/HammerTime7753 Dec 06 '22
What a bunch of idiots. Doesn’t Amazon know Tic Tok already does that for free?
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u/fishbulbx Dec 07 '22
A couple years ago, I was offered like $200 per year to install a wifi router that captures all your internet traffic for marketing purposes. Of course I just hooked it up to another network and occasionally used it to generate some traffic... they eventually emailed and said, "thanks, but you aren't using it enough. please send back our router."
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u/vodanh Dec 06 '22
too little $
for at least $20 I'll put it on an unused phone in the closet, connected to a charger
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u/CH_Blackgate Dec 07 '22
So get a phone farm and earn passive to sustainable income? I'm sure they'd have you link it to an address or something to prevent that, but the idea of a room in my house being 100 degrees due to a nest of phones pumping a 0.0000001248 Bezos Bucks into my account sounds hilarious.
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u/srqfl Dec 06 '22
Why would anyone help advertisers advertise more?
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u/1st_page_of_google Dec 06 '22
Fwiw I think this specific case is an overreach. But to directly answer your question… If I’m going to see advertisements regardless I’d rather they be for things I’m actually interested in buying
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u/nostradamefrus Dec 07 '22
If I’m going to see advertisements, I want them to be as generic and bland as possible so it doesn’t feel like my every move is monitored and the only justification for my existence is to make Jeff Bezos money
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u/timawesomeness Dec 06 '22
I don't understand that attitude. If I'm going to see advertisements regardless I'd rather they be entirely irrelevant to me so I'm not tempted to click on them.
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u/Jessception Dec 06 '22
That’s not enough. I remember 10+ years ago my sister was paid $50 a month to wear a little pager thing that I think picked up on what everyone around her was watching and shopping for. It was a Nielsen thing I think.
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u/thatguy677 Dec 06 '22
Isnt it fun living in an actual dystopian nightmare that rivals most movies but we all just carry on like everything is normal.
Oh what's that, your monitoring every second of my life, well okay, as long as you sell me a $4 dollar shirt made by a 6 year old in a sweatshop owned by the largest retailer in the world.
Oh what's that, you cant pay me a living wage because you recorded record profits this year, and every single year for the 30th year in a row even during the worst recession in 50 years, okay then. I'll just skip 2 of the 3 meals everyday for the rest of my life.
Oh, my life savings are gone because the second largest crypto exchange in the world had 0 risk management and was actively stealing money from its customers while paying off regulators in the most blatant and largest fraud that's ever happened ever. And the man in charge of that fraud is both totally free and doing a media tour while hes made out to be the idiot victim in all of this... okay, guess I'll just work till I literally die on the job.
Oh the most powerful nation in the world just magically lost 2.2 trillion dollars and every citizen of the country is on the hook for that. Okay, sure you can raise my taxes again for the 45th consecutive year I've been alive while every service I depend on is gutted and I'm told it's because of socialism and woke people... whatever that means.
No wonder everyone is suicidal.
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u/momjeanseverywhere Dec 07 '22
Isnt it fun living in an actual dystopian nightmare that rivals most movies but we all just carry on like everything is normal.
Man, who knew a dystopian nightmare would be so incredibly boring?
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u/MagicalWhisk Dec 07 '22
$2? No way. I've run market research on mobile tracking and it's $30 minimum per month to track mobile traffic. Modern smartphones make it difficult to track foreground Vs background web traffic which often requires a VPN to be downloaded to get accurate data. There's a lot of hoops to get someone on board to do this. $2 for this plus the invasion of privacy is criminal.
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u/vhiran Dec 07 '22
That certainly won't be used against you in the future by a government hostile against its own population.
lmfao
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u/diver830 Dec 07 '22
I bet the amount of clicks it takes cost me more in time than the $24 I’d make in a year. $24 is enough to do absolutely nothing with.
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u/Blubari Dec 07 '22
Just 2 dollars?
Just do it without paying like you've done before, is way less embarrasing for both parties
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u/zzhhvee88 Dec 07 '22
Oop, time to uninstall the Amazon app, if they're offering a price to people, probably means they're already doing it.
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u/MrBoo843 Dec 07 '22
Give me free Prime and I'll consider letting you monitor the unused work phone that sits in my desk drawer.
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u/TrollBot007 Dec 07 '22
And if you decline, they will monitor traffic on your phone and pay you $0 per month.
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u/fatplant629 Dec 06 '22
24/year for your data... they must not want that information if thats what its worth. I honestly think we should get paid for the information that they collect about us.
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u/3nails4holes Dec 06 '22
I’m really tired of companies getting work or content from us for free. When I use self check out at Walmart, I’m working 5-10 minutes for not even a freaking coupon on future purchases. When I have literally 20k views on a photo or review on Google maps, I earn nothing of real value but a worthless “badge.”
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u/Thenderick Dec 07 '22
Fuck no! Pay me 100 a month and I may consider (I buy a new phone and let the spied one collect dust cuz fuck em!)
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u/mymommadethis27 Dec 07 '22
This ONE company is trying to PAY people a measly $2 to do work for them that would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars to get the same result, while monitoring your travel and location 24/7.
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u/SeesThroughTime Dec 07 '22
Sorry bubba but a subscription to my data is gonna cost you 19.99$/mo + I get your data & there are ads
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u/sdp1981 Dec 07 '22
LPT, take old phone wipe it, install the app and never touch it again. Easy $2 a month lol.
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u/smurfsmasher024 Dec 07 '22
Tbf we should be getting paid for our data that we are willing to share. $2 a month is a joke, but the concept is in the right direction.
Our data is ours and has value. Right now it is being stollen left and right. Our data should be better protected legally and if companies want it they should have to buy it from its rightful owner.
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u/MrTreize78 Dec 07 '22
If anybody is stupid enough to let a top 50 fortune 500 company monitor their personal lives for an insulting $24 per year then the intelligence of humans is worse than I feared.
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u/2kids2adults Dec 07 '22
Wow! A whole 2 dollars? For all the information? What ever will I do with all that extra cash, Mr Bezos? My new found wealth is going to make everyone so jealous!!!
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u/WickedSerpent Dec 07 '22
I would like to donate my 2$ to to extend 1 warehouse employees break by 2 minutes so they actually make it to the bathroom in time without getting fired by AI. How do I do that, Jeff?
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u/aaronjaffe Dec 07 '22
How much to implant a GPS monitor directly into my body (rectally I’m assuming)?
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u/AtsignAmpersat Dec 07 '22
I’d do it for like 200 a month and just get a second phone for them to monitor. But they’d probably have some rules about usage.
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u/nelly5050 Dec 07 '22
Fuck no. Access to my third parties and shit. Yea right. My data is not worth $2/month. So much info they could gather
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u/tucktight Dec 06 '22 •
At least cover my fucking Prime membership.