Survey: Wireless Notification Service

Discussion in 'polls' started by `mishimasan`, Feb 21, 2005.

?

Would you want to receive instant messages of shopping offers local to you?

  1. Yes

    1 vote(s)
    16.7%
  2. No

    5 vote(s)
    83.3%
  3. Maybe...

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  4. I don't care - either way suits me just fine.

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
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  1. `mishimasan`

    `mishimasan` Registered Member

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    Location:
    London, England
    In this survey, I want to find out if there are more people that would prefer to receive instant messages on their travels about local offers via mobile phones, PDA's, laptops and any other wireless connected device, rather than not receiving any at all, and looking for the things mentioned in the messages manually.

    We are talking about SPAM in a way, but moreso for notifications that you may want to hear about during your travels - such as offers in the store around the corner.

    You can read more about my reasons in this post:

    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=67544

    p.s. It would be nice to give a reason for why you voted the way that you did.
     
  2. `mishimasan`

    `mishimasan` Registered Member

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    I voted yes because if there's an offer that genuinely interests me in my local vicinity, I would like to know about it. Just think about all those offers that were so close to you but you never saw... :mad:
     
  3. Detox

    Detox Retired Moderator

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    NO!

    First off, for localized IMs to be sent to me, I must be tracked. I do not want to be tracked as I go where I please. You know the old Iron Miaden lyrics - "I am not a number, I am a free man!"

    Even if that didn't bother an individual, how many of these "messages" are you going to be genuinly interested in and how many of the oncoming flood that you will surely experience be of no interest whatsoever? Since they would be popping onto your phone, you would be doing almost nothing but deleting IMs or hitting "next." Advertisers will not limit the amount of this garbage - you would be inundated the same way your email is once the address slips out or is harvested.

    On the other hand, I guess with IMs like that most people (me included) would ditch their cell phones and we might have more actual old-fashioned personal interaction :cool:
     
  4. `mishimasan`

    `mishimasan` Registered Member

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    That's a very good point there. However, I'm banking on the fact that the software filters would work... :doubt:
     
  5. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    Location:
    SW. Oklahoma
    As much as possible I keep my personal preferences to my self and I have no desire to have spam messages sent to me at any time. And I don't like the implication that they would have to track you to send relevent spam as to your location to have it do any good at all. Why anyone would willingly open themselfs to a flood of spam is beyond my comprehension. And to know that someone knew where you were all day long is not my idea of personal security, physcial or electronic. These companys with there polls and demographics might as well not count on me participating in there little scheme.


    bigc
     
  6. Detox

    Detox Retired Moderator

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    I can see what you mean by software filters, but that is a huge "if" IMHO. I mean, none have worked that well so far in anything else (I think).

    All the same, I may be on the fringe, but I simply find it unacceptable to be tracked in such a manner. I don't want people to know where I am unless they see me or I tell them I am there. Yes, I am one of those people who leaves the store if they want to "scan" my drivers license. I have nothing to hide, but the store does not need my address, phone number, and a scan of my magnetic strip when I bought a refrigerator with cash. BTW - I made the salesman put the store's own address in for mine, along with the phone number since it wouldnt go through the computer without those entries. Otherwise, I would have taken my cash to a store where the cash was enough without all the extra information that could only be used for one thing really - spamming me.
     
  7. `mishimasan`

    `mishimasan` Registered Member

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    The service wouldn't need to know where you are all the time, in fact it wouldn't be a collective network to the outside, it would rather seem like a collection of stand-alone servers that give out information about outlets around that area. Of course they would be interconnected but whether or not they would use that information is another story. IMO I think that a user would walk through the network safe transmit-receive distance too fast for the network to figure out anything useful to send you in relation to where you were the week before etc. or figuring out some kind of "shopping pattern".

    However, apart from you guys disagreeing (totally understandable) with the idea of such a notification service, realistically - aren't we going to see something like this developed shortly? If not by an organisation or group of organisations... by a Government?

    Please don't think that I'm here sponsoring a corporate idea!! I'm just a lowly Networking student looking for a good break on my dissertation that's all!
     
  8. Detox

    Detox Retired Moderator

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    Will it happen? Yes I think so. Will I try to stay very clear of it? Yes. If I am forced to have a cell phone that send me such msgs or no cell phone, I"ll have no cell phone. That phone is a wonderful invention but that's just too much trouble and intrusion upon me. Anyway, the servers would never be stand-alone; our computers won't even be stand-alone if MS has its way! THey would always be connected! The spamvertisers would want the same thing they try with tracking cookies - they want to know what you might be interested in as well as when and where, etc. There is no limit to the thirst for knowledge, and that goes double for a spammers thirst for knowledge of where you are and what you are doing!
     
  9. mercurie

    mercurie A Friendly Creature

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    Three words: No Thank You.

    Leave me alone on that one. :p
     
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