I was going to wait to post this, but seems that disaster has been adverted and the powers that be have switched focus over to the effect on Brexit. So the main bits of dirty washing are unlikely to come out now.
Faceplank and its use of data mining is a bit of a smoke and mirror thing, i have a friend in the third year of a 4 year masters in social engineering and marketing. I had a chat with him when faceplank first broke out in the news, he told me alot of info you might find interesting if faceplank annoyed you.
News flash Faceplank do data mining and target analysis on a tiny scale! They are actually not the big players in this people think they are, its been going on for many more years than they have existed and on a much larger scale. My friend and his class are trying to get jobs in the kind of places that use your data or at least analyses it and sell it on.
Everyone in the industry was worried alot of other things would come out, but now seems unlikely the main data industry dodge the bullet. Now he and his class have done some pretty clever experiments to manipulate this data, they have looked at ways to make it more accurate and therefore worth more.
So who re much worse than faceplank? and lets see if this resonates with anyone.....
First in the cue is supermarkets, you dont have to have a loyalty card, but if you do then your data is clean and green to use, if you dont then your data is worth a little less but your likely to get money off vouchers sent to you, the ones you get will be ones that you need to fill your name and address in on, this cleans you up and makes you top tier data.
What am i on about?
Sharing cat pictures and ranting online is class 3 data, it is not particularly accurate, the simple fact is 99% of people to some degree have a slightly altered online persona, you might not know it but you act a little different online, its not the real you its a kind of well drawn picture of you, rather than a photograph.
Shops and supermarkets however are a full on hi res picture of who you are, your shopping tells people more about you than faceplank will ever know. Think about it a minuet......
Have a think about what you buy and the kind of junk mail or sales calls you get, this is no coincidence. Now as experiments the person i know and his class did some cool stuff, they all met up and got into groups for two months. The group you were in consisted of between 3 and 5 people, the main caveat for getting a particular group was common interest.
Each group on the first experiment were very similar people, on the second experiment they added one opposite to each group and on the third (the most funny one) they mixed it up completely.
None lived in halls of residence, being a masters degree and starting this in the second year, meant most had found houses to share away from the campus a bit where its cheaper or quieter, some lived with parents. But as you will see this dosnt matter as long as you dont shop in the same place as your parents.
So once a week they sit and wrote a shopping list, those at home with parents had an advantage (explain in a min). They would shop for the group once a week using one card (loyalty or debit card etc), and split the bill between them. Extras or things they didnt want tracked were paid for with cash by others in the group and no loyalty card used.
Now if your in the UK the following will explain why every single time you goto a check out, EVERY till operator asks you if you have a shop card or if you would like one, they are monetizing you!
Before I forget most groups with loyalty cards paid with cash but used the card, a couple of groups acting near to there real status used a single credit card from the group and the loyalty card).
So back to the experiment and see how this fits what happens to you.....
Each group chose a social type and identity, without bringing religeon too much into it, they developed a family for themselves, a couple of groups adding in a religeon as well, so lets say.......
Group A of 5 people acted like a Muslim family (shopping wise), they decided they had no kids and where in the 40's age range (far from the truth). They filled out the little card for the loyalty scheme according to the profile they set themselves. Because some had access to parents and siblings, this meant some groups could have young children or babies, or pets etc.
I wont detail everything they did unless someone wants complete details, then i will come back and give more info. But for the moment just think of 5-6 groups acting like different families or groups of people.
So what happened?
After 2 months the type of junk mail and calls they got changed a great deal, here are some examples.
One group were poor with kids, they brought nappies (apparently for a sister) and baby stuff each week, they kept the food fairly simple and no luxuries (anything like that they paid cash in another shop, or by someone else in the group at a different time). They brought hand rolling tobacco (none smoked in this group!! but again a family member did), they did buy 1-2 bottles of cheap wine a week, they didnt buy any herbs or spices or veg that came pre washed and ready.
hey also had a non real cat, so they got mid range cat food each week and the supermarket cheap own brand cat litter.
Within 2 months they got things like the following coming through there letter box, Cats protection league leaflet every two weeks, asking if they could sign up for just £2 a month to help save poor kitties, the leaflets were often fairly bland pictures not to disturbing. Zero holiday leaflets, leaflets on where to get cheap pay day loans (these were odd, your not meant to get those kind of things!!).
No major credit card offers but a couple of high APR credit card applications. Phone calls were from mainly children's charities, and so on.
Compare this to the group who decided to be dog lovers and while there were three in the group, they shopped for two. They swapped a bit between the three to help with cost. They acted like young professionals. They had a big dog (or rather someone they know did), they brought decent cuts of meat for themselves and 1-2 decent bottles of wine a night.
They brought high end aftershave a couple of times, they ALWAYS purchased the plastic bags, they never brought own brand products.
They started to get post for holiday offers in exotic places, credit cards had credit limits raised and every decent credit card company sent them invites weekly!! They also got DOG protection league leaflets, but they were harder hitting and asked for £25 a month. They were offered life insurance and investment information from banks etc.
If anyone wants to hear the whole thing (its pretty long), i will post it. But beyond doubt it proved each group was very very carefully targeted, even to the point that the only group who didnt get money off offers for alcohol or pizza menus where the group who decided to portray themselves as Muslims by buying halal stuff etc. They were also the only group who didnt get holiday offers but did get flight offers.
The level of detail is striking, especially as one group pretended to also have a cat, but no kids and mid range income. Cats protection league begging letter again, but this time harder hitting and asking for £12 a month. They also got the most animal welfare leaflets through the door.
So ask yourself this........ if you got enraged by faceplank, how come it dosnt upset you that your local shopping place clearly sells highly detailed information about you? And who actually goes through this data and decides who best to sell it onto?
like i said i have skimmed over a great deal of it, they were highly detailed in what they did and predicted the results (or tried to), what horrified them all as a class, was the shear level of detail that had been extracted from there weekly shopping. And these are people going into this kind of work!
Faceplank and its use of data mining is a bit of a smoke and mirror thing, i have a friend in the third year of a 4 year masters in social engineering and marketing. I had a chat with him when faceplank first broke out in the news, he told me alot of info you might find interesting if faceplank annoyed you.
News flash Faceplank do data mining and target analysis on a tiny scale! They are actually not the big players in this people think they are, its been going on for many more years than they have existed and on a much larger scale. My friend and his class are trying to get jobs in the kind of places that use your data or at least analyses it and sell it on.
Everyone in the industry was worried alot of other things would come out, but now seems unlikely the main data industry dodge the bullet. Now he and his class have done some pretty clever experiments to manipulate this data, they have looked at ways to make it more accurate and therefore worth more.
So who re much worse than faceplank? and lets see if this resonates with anyone.....
First in the cue is supermarkets, you dont have to have a loyalty card, but if you do then your data is clean and green to use, if you dont then your data is worth a little less but your likely to get money off vouchers sent to you, the ones you get will be ones that you need to fill your name and address in on, this cleans you up and makes you top tier data.
What am i on about?
Sharing cat pictures and ranting online is class 3 data, it is not particularly accurate, the simple fact is 99% of people to some degree have a slightly altered online persona, you might not know it but you act a little different online, its not the real you its a kind of well drawn picture of you, rather than a photograph.
Shops and supermarkets however are a full on hi res picture of who you are, your shopping tells people more about you than faceplank will ever know. Think about it a minuet......
Have a think about what you buy and the kind of junk mail or sales calls you get, this is no coincidence. Now as experiments the person i know and his class did some cool stuff, they all met up and got into groups for two months. The group you were in consisted of between 3 and 5 people, the main caveat for getting a particular group was common interest.
Each group on the first experiment were very similar people, on the second experiment they added one opposite to each group and on the third (the most funny one) they mixed it up completely.
None lived in halls of residence, being a masters degree and starting this in the second year, meant most had found houses to share away from the campus a bit where its cheaper or quieter, some lived with parents. But as you will see this dosnt matter as long as you dont shop in the same place as your parents.
So once a week they sit and wrote a shopping list, those at home with parents had an advantage (explain in a min). They would shop for the group once a week using one card (loyalty or debit card etc), and split the bill between them. Extras or things they didnt want tracked were paid for with cash by others in the group and no loyalty card used.
Now if your in the UK the following will explain why every single time you goto a check out, EVERY till operator asks you if you have a shop card or if you would like one, they are monetizing you!
Before I forget most groups with loyalty cards paid with cash but used the card, a couple of groups acting near to there real status used a single credit card from the group and the loyalty card).
So back to the experiment and see how this fits what happens to you.....
Each group chose a social type and identity, without bringing religeon too much into it, they developed a family for themselves, a couple of groups adding in a religeon as well, so lets say.......
Group A of 5 people acted like a Muslim family (shopping wise), they decided they had no kids and where in the 40's age range (far from the truth). They filled out the little card for the loyalty scheme according to the profile they set themselves. Because some had access to parents and siblings, this meant some groups could have young children or babies, or pets etc.
I wont detail everything they did unless someone wants complete details, then i will come back and give more info. But for the moment just think of 5-6 groups acting like different families or groups of people.
So what happened?
After 2 months the type of junk mail and calls they got changed a great deal, here are some examples.
One group were poor with kids, they brought nappies (apparently for a sister) and baby stuff each week, they kept the food fairly simple and no luxuries (anything like that they paid cash in another shop, or by someone else in the group at a different time). They brought hand rolling tobacco (none smoked in this group!! but again a family member did), they did buy 1-2 bottles of cheap wine a week, they didnt buy any herbs or spices or veg that came pre washed and ready.
hey also had a non real cat, so they got mid range cat food each week and the supermarket cheap own brand cat litter.
Within 2 months they got things like the following coming through there letter box, Cats protection league leaflet every two weeks, asking if they could sign up for just £2 a month to help save poor kitties, the leaflets were often fairly bland pictures not to disturbing. Zero holiday leaflets, leaflets on where to get cheap pay day loans (these were odd, your not meant to get those kind of things!!).
No major credit card offers but a couple of high APR credit card applications. Phone calls were from mainly children's charities, and so on.
Compare this to the group who decided to be dog lovers and while there were three in the group, they shopped for two. They swapped a bit between the three to help with cost. They acted like young professionals. They had a big dog (or rather someone they know did), they brought decent cuts of meat for themselves and 1-2 decent bottles of wine a night.
They brought high end aftershave a couple of times, they ALWAYS purchased the plastic bags, they never brought own brand products.
They started to get post for holiday offers in exotic places, credit cards had credit limits raised and every decent credit card company sent them invites weekly!! They also got DOG protection league leaflets, but they were harder hitting and asked for £25 a month. They were offered life insurance and investment information from banks etc.
If anyone wants to hear the whole thing (its pretty long), i will post it. But beyond doubt it proved each group was very very carefully targeted, even to the point that the only group who didnt get money off offers for alcohol or pizza menus where the group who decided to portray themselves as Muslims by buying halal stuff etc. They were also the only group who didnt get holiday offers but did get flight offers.
The level of detail is striking, especially as one group pretended to also have a cat, but no kids and mid range income. Cats protection league begging letter again, but this time harder hitting and asking for £12 a month. They also got the most animal welfare leaflets through the door.
So ask yourself this........ if you got enraged by faceplank, how come it dosnt upset you that your local shopping place clearly sells highly detailed information about you? And who actually goes through this data and decides who best to sell it onto?
like i said i have skimmed over a great deal of it, they were highly detailed in what they did and predicted the results (or tried to), what horrified them all as a class, was the shear level of detail that had been extracted from there weekly shopping. And these are people going into this kind of work!
