Telcos Waking Up To the Value of Your Location 178
holy_calamity writes "Cell phone networks represent probably the most effective data collectors of all time: almost everyone's movements and communications are logged in some way by these firms thanks to the ubiquity of cell phones. Now they're beginning to wake up to the value of that data, as researchers mine call records to study travel and social patterns at previously unimaginable scales. Not surprisingly, some are thinking about how to monetize that data, too."
What's next, monetizing what people talk/text? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is just more of the slope we are going down. I'm sure that soon, telcos will realize they have a nice stream of info they can mine/monetize by attaching voice recognition software to people chatting, and then sell that data, either "aggregate", or person by person and identifiable.
Europe actually has lawmakers who might pass privacy laws. Maybe the EU can start by attaching severe penalties for using location information for anything but critical legal info?
This has already been done before... (Score:2, Interesting)
Jack Dorsey (Twitter Founder) did this with bike couriers, ambulances, and fire trucks. Mologogo (http://www.mologogo.com/) allows you to do this somewhat as part of a social network, Google Latitude allows you to see who's close by. I wouldn't be surprised if we are already being tracked.
As for ways for telcos to monetize this, I would imagine this data would make a PI's job a lot easier--as well as an unwanted stalker--individuals' locations in aggregate would be useful for real-time traffic data, or even for commuting stats. It sort of reminds me of a game called Monopoly Tycoon and how I could see how shoppers in my city were moving, and place my stores to maximize foot traffic.
Re:Value (Score:5, Interesting)
I just wished the iPhone and Android let me have a background easy scripting language like python.
It's what I missed when I finally had to switch away from the Nokia platform. Being able to write a small script that sent a position update to MY SERVER every 5 minutes.
It was cool to see the lights come on and the garage door open when I pulled in the driveway and got off the bike. It was typically a 2.5 minute delay from when I pulled in the driveway and when the system detected I was home from the gps reporting to activate everything. Perfect timing as I then had my helmet off, took off the jacket and unstrapped the backpack from the seat.
Come on Google and Apple, let us do cool stuff with our phones!
Why stop at location? (Score:5, Interesting)
They can sell information on everyone you called, use speech recognition to monetize the content of your calls. And since you voluntarily brought a phone into your life, why turn off the microphone just because you aren't making a call? Just continuously record everything in the vicinity - there must be a wealth of data there that someone would pay for.
If data-mining of everything that touches the service works for facebook, why not telcos?
Telecom Personal in Argentina (Score:2, Interesting)
Vodafone woke up years ago (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Value (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually a 5 minute delay. I only would transmit every 5 minutes to keep the battery life nearly the same as it was without the script running. and 2.5 minutes is less than the time it took for me to do what I needed in the driveway to get off the bike, etc.. worked great and was highly practical. Some days it all happened as I turned into the drive, others it would take about 3 minutes. I almost never had to wait for it. (except when the internet was down at home and it did not get updates.)
if I did an update every 2.5 seconds my cellphone battery would be dead in 3 hours as it would be in a constant data transfer mode.
Plus my trigger radius is somewhat large. IT's easy from the data to detect if I am headed home by position updates and location. so making smarter decisions on the data I can extrapolate my intentions and make the trigger radius bigger thus minimizing the delay when I get to the garage.
Although I am a laid back guy. Waiting a minute is nothing to me, some people freak out and go on a rampage when they have to wait 1 second. A buddy of mine is like that.. I love torturing him by making him wait all the time.
Re:"Value Added" (Score:5, Interesting)
It's too late.
I have a police/fire scanner, and I regularly hear them talking about "pinging" cell phones, and "Unit XYZ, welfare concern, stage 2 cell phone hang up in the area of blah blah blah...", etc.
Re:Why stop at location? (Score:1, Interesting)
I'd say that you're getting just a little paranoid. If "they" (whoever they may be) left your phone TRANSMITTING AND RECEIVING constantly, I think you might notice a little issue called BATTERY LIFE. Just saying.....