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Oh so that is why the agencies have been hounding me to go work for Tesco.
But seriously thou, isn't it a bit creapy? Rather than been a great thing to provide targetted adverts I find it a little represive.
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It's not for me. I don't have a Clubcard and won't ever agree to take one. And moreover, I don't want my personal data analysed to target me with adverts .... not by anybody, for anything.
Why? Are you afraid of getting more relevant money off vouchers?Originally Posted by Saracen
I don't really care if Tesco know I have a thing for pain-aux-raisins... Now Nectar is a bit more creepy as that works in multiple shops, i.e. more data, but still all they'd really know about me is that I no longer shop in Sainsburys but am clearly doing up my new house...
But where is the line drawn?
I have a magestic wine near by I use a bit, probably about 30-50 bottles a year. I'd asked them to give me a call if they got any more of something specific in stock. The guy I asked called me a few days later to invite me to a tasting of a specific kind, based on the information he had about me. So whilst that wasn't based on a database, but a person, that bit of targeted advertising is good. Mostly because they don't bother me unless its very likely I'll bite. Ie i've never not.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
I let google have my information to target me. They give me a fantastic service and all my nexus devices are top notch. I use adblock on basically everything anyway, and adverts that are more likely to actually be useful to me are a perfectly happy addition to my browsing. I mean, I don't want adverts for flower shops that I wouldn't even consider, but I'd gladly be interested in the latest technology sales.
Also personally I see it as a nice equivilant exchange thing. I basically live in Google, completely for free, there's no reason I have to not let them make a bit more cash from ads more tailored to me.
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Your line is drawn wherever it suits you to draw it. Mine? See below.
If you've asked them to call you, then it's a contact at your request. Fair enough, you want it.
But I do not want sales or marketing calls on my phone, home or mobile, from anybody, about anything, ever. Period. I want to be left the hell alone.
My local pizza place ask for a contact number when you order a delivery. As a reference to avoid time-wasters and nuisance fake orders, I understand that. But I started getting "offers" by SMS. And that, I do not want. So I went in and, politely, asked them to remove me from their SMS marketing list. That was a few weeks, maybe two months ago. So far, so good. But if I start getting offers by text again, I'll be looking for a new pizza delivery service.
I shop in my local Screwfix and they always ask for postcode, even if paying cash. I refuse. One bloke said they can't sell without one as the till won't take the order. I know that isn't true, as I always do it. They have a code for 'cash sale'. But last time, I had to get the manager out before the sales clerk would accept he was wrong. And I would have left and bought elsewhere, inclyding paying more or travelling further, but I was NOT ending up on their database.
I bought a tablet computer recently, and there's a £50 cashback from the manufacturer, when you send in an application, but they require name, address, phone and bank details. Guess what? Yup, I didn't send it in. That decision cost me £50. I value being left alone sufficiently that I'll forego that £50 rather than simply risk that data being used to market at me, by that one manufscturer, or whomever they may sell the data to.
When I say I want to be left in peace and not pestered with targeted advertising EVER, I mean exactly that. I don't care who the seller is, or what the offer is, if it involves pestering me with adverts, and most emphatically if it involves phone calls, I don't want to know. I want to be left alone.
If P&O have a free world cruise, don't telephone me about it. If Aston Martin are giving away a free car, pester someone else, but do not phone me.
That's where I draw the line.
As I said in my first post, I do not want targeted advertising, not by anybody, not for anything, not under any circumstances. For me, there is no line to draw. I just don't want personalised advertising. PERIOD.
I know most people won't understand that, and some probably won't believe me about the cruise, or Aston, but I assure you, I mean exactly what I said. That is how strongly I feel about it.
I'm not "afraid" of getting vouchers, but I'm not remotely interested in a few quid in vouchers, and do not want Tesco, or anybody else, tracking what I choose to buy. Personally, I very, very rarely use Tesco at all, and on those extremely rare occasions that I do, I pay cash, as I do for all supermarket shopping, regardless of which supermarket it is.
If you want the vouchers and don't mind the invasion of privacy, then fine, use their card. Your choice. But I don't care about the trivial sums of money the vouchers represent, and I do care about keeping every byte of data about me that I can out of corporate databases.
But in my experience it's not ads about the latest technology sales. It's more focussed, more personal and more annoying. Example: I briefly looked at chimineas online once. I already own one. For months the only adverts I saw online were for chimineas. Not only was I not remotely interested in buying one, but it was also intensely annoying. And what if I had been shopping for a surprise birthday present for the other half? Hardly a surprise is it if it's been plastered all over the internet for a month.
Targeted advertising can die in a hole as far as I'm concerned. Generic stuff? Fine. It reveals nothing about my browsing habits to passers by and there is at least more variety to ignore.
I have no issues with tesco, or any other company tracking my basic user data. If they use it to ensure they are keeping up with the latest shopping trends and helping them stock enough of what I tend to buy then wicked.
But if they use it for targeted marketing then more fool them. I have never bough anything just because of an advert targeted towards me unless I was already looking for something similiar for a while (like the Douwe Egberts flavoured coffees...) and even then I use the advert like a newspaper article, for information only, and look for it elsewhere in the shops I usually use.
What gripes me is when ads become intrusive to the experience, be it un-skippable ads on DVD's, noisy flash ads, annoying ads that cover online video clips (we all know the site I mean), or them stupid ads that expand when you hover over them.
I just hope Tesco keep it simple and have non intrusive ads otherwise I won't be interested. Which will be a shame since it actually looks reasonable.
Conspiracy theories aside, I'm disappointed that it uses MS silverlight...
This renders it utterly useless in my point of view.
This is 2013, open video standards and HTML 5 are mature technologies now. There is no excuse to use silverlight.
"The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
- Douglas Adams.
Microsoft's support for Silverlight ended in 2010! So why are people still using it??
"The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
- Douglas Adams.
Seeing as you couldn't be bothered to edit your posts, I'll quote em both.
Silverlight is supported. It hasn't ended, its still there in VS2012 and whilst isn't getting many new features isn't EOL.
You can be as disappointed as you want, but quite simply HTML5 Video is not mature, there is no standard for DRM video codecs, nor I doubt will there be. Ironically the political nature of the consortium makes it impossible for a true competitor to Flash/Silverlight to come out.
Netflix uses Silverlight entirely. Silverlight has a much better security record than flash, it has a much better API than flash, it runs code faster than than flash, it has better video codec features than flash. So I can see why they choose it over flash.
If you think you could do this in a standards compliant HTML5 format your mistaken. Or rather code up a proof of concept and sell it for a few million to Netflix.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
I think the problem is that where the line is drawn, or rather enforced, is ultimately going to be at the mercy of democratic influence.
This is just bad because far too many people will sell details of their right plumb for enough nector points to buy a free mars bar. Some are even so cheap, they value their liberty so little they use google <We're Going to Read Everything you Write/Recieve> mail.
And here in is the problem, some people sell themselves so cheapily they consider that a good deal.
For me, if I was able to only ever be disturbed by un-solicited communications to take ownership of a new Aston, I'd allow it. I think £80k is a fair price to be woken up in the night. But that is my line.
The problem is that people don't mind, for some, the idea of having a firm which directly taylors all their content to them, knowing everything it can about them, is good. In a way they might be right, I don't want to see commercials for nappies, tampons, pay-day-loans, your on the dole - lets sue someone. etc. They know they will get a 0 conversion from me for these things I'd guess from my shopping. So I can even see the appeal, no matter how much it appauls me.
In my other post to you, I was simply trying to play devils advocate as I don't see any simple fair to all solution to this concern.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Well, with the Aston, I was making a point. If I'm guaranteed an Aston, and the proper ones not the cheap old £80k stuff, I might bite down my irritation at being marketed at. Maybe. But of course, no such guarantee is ever going to be offered.
What it boils down to is that nothing any company is ever going to offer is ever going to be remotely close to anything I'd see as a fair price for being targeted with marketing. Certainly, a competition style chance, even of that Aston, wouldn't do it.
What it boils down to is that I don't want to be tracked, and have my buying habits databased not because of a conspiracy theory that someone mentioned, but simply gecause I do not want unsolicited marketing. EVER.
I am registered with TPS, etc, have notified the Post Office not to stuff marketing crap through my letter box, and am very specific with any company I deal with to NOT direct market me. I changed phone companies because the first (BT) repeatedly rang me despite being asked not to, then told not to, then after a few more requests to desist, I finally lost my temper and let rip with a 2 minute monologue, most of it in Angle-Saxon expletives, the general tone of which was "leave me the bleep alone and stop bleeping pestering me".
I am extremely careful to fill in the opt-out boxes on any forms I fill in, and carefully read which way round the boxes are. And I keep scanned copies of every such form so I can prove I opted out. I always soecify that on the phone, especialky if giving out my phone number. I carefully stipulated that, for instance, with the AA when taking out insurance, and yet, despute that, sure enough, I get phone calls trying to sell extra crap. I lost my temoer with them, too. I asked the salesman if he could see how long my membership has been active. My card says "member since 1964". And he finally got the message that I really REALLY didn't want sales calls when I pointed out that if despite having told them not to, I got as much as one more call, I would lodge a complaint with the ICO and I would not renew that 50+ year membership.
In an ideal world, I don't want adverts, but avoiding those is not an option, especially on TV. I do go to the trouble of never watching live TV with adverts, though. I always record, and then ad-skip. But I adamantly object to commercial organisations monitoring what I do, where I go or what I buy in order to sell me stuff.
My overall position is that it should be the consumer's choice whether their personal data is gathered and tracked by companies. Some people don't mind, and want targeted ad's because targeted ad's are more likely to be relevant. Fair enough, that's their line. Some people will sell their data for a few Tesco vouchers. Again, fair enough. That is at least a scheme where you have to apply to join, and if people do do, then it was their choice .... providing they realise what the data is used for.
And that's why this scheme is not for me - I will not volunteer for such a scheme, Tesco or otherwise. But lots of people do, and would.
But I don't want to be pestered. I don't want junk through the door, but I get really annoyed with pestering phone calls, home or mobile. That's why I keep my phone number under very tight control, and why, from time to time, I change it. And by tight control, I mean mean tight. I refused to give my bank my new number after getting sales calls from them. Now, they want to contact me, they send a letter. I also refused point-blank to give the Inland Revenue the number. Again, send a letter, though that wasn't because of sales calls, but because I want an audit trail, and a record of communications.
Basically, if you aren't friend or family, that I've given the number to, don't phone me.
All I really want is to be left alone, especially by commercial interests. If I want something, I'll go hunt for it. One motor trader lost a sale because they didn't listen to me on that point -I bought a new car from a competitor instead.
And the single biggezt reason I'm so restrictive on giving ANY details out is that experience (like with the AA) tells me you can tell them "no phone calks, and no marketing mail" until you're blue in the face, and a large proportion of companies say "yes sir" and then do it anyway.
Short of punitive regulation, not the daft unenforced farce in place at the moment, companies will continue to do what the hell they please, regardless of opt-outs, far too often. The only thing I can do to stop them using data about me, in as far as it is possible to do it, is to make sure I don't give any more data than absolutely necessary. So, I take active and passive steps .... passive as in not signing up for clubcards, active as in paying cash the vast bulk of the time.And, it works. I don't get much junk mail any more, and very few phone calls any more either. Which suits me just fine.
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