> Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go.
Any articles/webpages about this one? Or a company name who is doing it?
But there are too many to name. In 2018, you should assume that any free service (Unroll.me), web/mobile SDK (Slice), email client (Airmail), personal finance tracker (Mint), integration API (Plaid), geolocator (Foursquare), etc is monetized by selling your data en masse for market research.
It's not just location data. Dig into the TOS of free services you use. It's your receipts, your transactions, your subscriptions...all are "anonymized" to varying degrees of success. Even Meraki, the network router/switch company, sells location data.[1]
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This is mostly a distinction without a difference, because for firms that do this, one of those "business services" is providing a thin layer of analysis over the underlying data.
Honestly, since my line of work is similar (tangential) to what they do, my opinions are probably quite different from the moral majority who might read about this kind of issue without understanding the range of applications. I'm not sure what the solution is but I think there is a regulatory solution that preserves both consumer privacy and the extraction of economy-benefiting value. And I do think something needs to be done to protect privacy, even if it means negative impacts to the commercial space I am in.
> Airmail does not share your information with any third parties. We are not in the business of selling your data. However, we may disclose information if we determine that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with the law.
They also state that they do not send information to their servers unless you enable push notifications, store data only for this purpose, and delete the data when you disable this setting.
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> Ever wonder what your consumer thinks minute-by-minute? Pinsight’s ID Suite gets behind the lock screen to understand the mindset of your best customer. Leveraging 24/7 insights from the mobile device, we uncover new audiences and discover new market opportunities so you can engage with consumers in ways that matter.
“Gets behind the lock screen”
Jeez that is some brazen marketing.
It's blatant and normalized.
It is an open standard:
https://www.iab.com/guidelines/real-time-bidding-rtb-project...
https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/OpenRTB_API_S...
You don't actually have to bid.
(HN is rate-limiting me) edit: Data is pushed to you as fast as you can process it. It's a firehose.
That’s really creative honestly.
Also, most of the data on it is pretty shitty with lots of fraud since the publishers want to get more money. The geo data is often fraudulent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_center_of_the_conti...), and that's why companies that bid hire data scientists to sift through the fraud.
There's also rarely, in my experience, year-of-birth or any personally identifiable data.
I don't agree with your claim that "the geodata is often fraudulent".
Anyone can read the linked pdf specification (above), download sample data from the exchanges, and judge for themselves.
( "Out of sight, out of mind" )
> Any articles/webpages about this one? Or a company name who is doing it?
Foursquare does it, there were some articles last year about how they pivoted to providing that data. They were able to accurately predict Chipotle customer declines after their food contamination scandals.
I'm not sure if they use this carrier location data, or just the data from the people who are still using their app.
Edit: here's one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/04/2...