Ambulance chasing gets modern.. and creepy

[DoctorWho1975]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/25/613127311/digital-ambulance-chasers-law-firms-send-ads-to-patients-phones-inside-ers

 

Patients sitting in emergency rooms, at chiropractors' offices and at pain clinics in the Philadelphia area may start noticing on their phones the kind of messages typically seen along highway billboards and public transit: personal injury law firms looking for business by casting mobile online ads at patients.

The potentially creepy part? They're only getting fed the ad because somebody knows they are in an emergency room.

 

Interesting its only labeled as potentially creepy. Because you know, finding an ambulance chaser in 'Murica is just sooooooooooooooo hard.   I think this is a bit more then potentially creepy, especially when you combine it with below:

 

"Private medical information should not be exploited in this way," Healey says. "Especially when it's gathered secretly without a consumer's knowledge, without knowledge or consent."

 

Yeah, here I am in the hospital, already having a bad day and low and behold.. I got big brother trying to find me a lawyer. Maybe I would prefer no one but myself and my insurance company know I was in the hospital. Too bad that choice has been ripped from me.

 

And of course those tolerant Christians got in on the act:

 

"Private medical information should not be exploited in this way," Healey says. "Especially when it's gathered secretly without a consumer's knowledge, without knowledge or consent." Healey's office was the first in the country to go after geofencing technology catching people while they are seeking care.

 

Prosecutors there reached a deal last year with a Massachusetts-based digital advertising firm that was sending advertisements from a Christian pregnancy counseling and adoption agency to people who entered Planned Parenthood clinics. When patients would go to the clinics, they'd also cross a digital fence and soon get advertisements such as "You have choices" and "Click here for pregnancy help."

 

Healey's deal claiming violations of the state's consumer protection act for the ads being allegedly "unfair and deceptive" resulted in banishment of the digital firm from Massachusetts. Directing ads at people for seeking medical care is really a kind of digital harassment, Healey says."We just want to make sure that companies aren't exploiting information in violation of existing privacy laws with respect to health information that's so sensitive," she says.

 

Yeah, because you know... Planned Parenthood just does abortions.  They don't in any way shape or form do any other activities.

 

Lots more in the article.. what is not is what actually happens to all that data? Who is buying it after the fact, will this hurt someone 6 months, a year.. or more down the line? This is where our gubbamint overlords need to step in but then again when it comes to the advertising money they get a cut (taxes). 

[Spotty]

Location based ad services has been around for a while. If you don't like it, or don't like Google/Apple knowing where you are, simply turn your phones location services off.

You may not be able to use things like maps and search results through the assistants such as "pizza places near me", but the price you pay for those services is through the location based ads you are served. You didn't think that Google and Apple provided all that information and convenience for free out of the generosity of their heart, did you?
 

Quote

The potentially creepy part? They're only getting fed the ad because somebody knows they are in an emergency room.

Well, not really. There's not someone sitting in an office looking at a screen with your location thinking "Hmm, DoctorWho is sitting in an emergency room. I better send him some ads". There's certainly not someone from the legal office looking at all the people who checked in to Emergency based on who the ads was served up to, either.
If by "somebody knows they are in an emergency room" you mean Apples/Googles Location Services algorithms, then yes. But they would already know your location if your devices location services is turned on anyway so they're not getting any new information.
It's just your device reporting its location via location services, which is then detected by the ad servicing companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc) as being within an area that is set up for location based ads, and then having those location specific ads fed to your device.

 

Quote

Prosecutors there reached a deal last year with a Massachusetts-based digital advertising firm that was sending advertisements from a Christian pregnancy counseling and adoption agency to people who entered Planned Parenthood clinics. When patients would go to the clinics, they'd also cross a digital fence and soon get advertisements such as "You have choices" and "Click here for pregnancy help."

Churches/religious organisations are a bit weird. They do stupid shit like this all the time. At least it's less invasive than having them in a picket line outside the clinics shouting abuse at anyone who enters the clinic. In some states there are laws against protesting and harassing people accessing family planning/abortion clinics and have exclusion zones around the clinics. If an agency is specifically targeting anti-abortion ads to users within that exclusion zone, then there *may* be cause to have the ads removed.

If it really bothers you, you could always set up the local churches to receive location based ads and pay for a bunch of ads to be delivered within their location that they may not want to see. Perhaps advertise things like Grindr, Satanic Cults, Psychological services for victims of child sexual abuse, and so on.

[DoctorWho1975]

Turning off location services doesn't help:

 

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/your-smartphone-can-be-tracked-even-if-gps-location-services-are-turned-off/

 

 

[asus killer]

1 hour ago, DoctorWho1975 said:

Turning off location services doesn't help:

 

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/your-smartphone-can-be-tracked-even-if-gps-location-services-are-turned-off/

 

 

it is true, but it's not as easy as doing it with the GPS and not as accurate at least to the point as to know you're in building x in a street full of buildings. I'm sure if you turn off location you won't get any messages based on your location.

[vorticalbox]

4 minutes ago, asus killer said:

it is true, but it's not as easy as doing it with the GPS and not as accurate at least to the point as to know you're in building x in a street full of buildings. I'm sure if you turn off location you won't get any messages based on your location.

Phones can also do altitude, and can work out what floor you're on.

 

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

Location based ad services has been around for a while. If you don't like it, or don't like Google/Apple knowing where you are, simply turn your phones location services off.

You could just allow apps you trust to access location data or even go into your google activity and turn everything off and google won't track the data.

 

 

[Eaglerino]

I'm confused about the Christian bashing

[asus killer]

2 minutes ago, Eaglerino said:

I'm confused about the Christian bashing

anti abortion and anti planned parenthood nuts

[Eaglerino]

16 hours ago, asus killer said:

anti abortion and anti planned parenthood nuts

Ah well missed the part in the article. I'm not pro-choice but if it's legal then there's no reason to get targeted ads and this is disturbing they even have the phone numbers (edit they don't have the phone numbers just abusing the ad system)

[Spotty]

2 hours ago, DoctorWho1975 said:

Turning off location services doesn't help:

 

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/your-smartphone-can-be-tracked-even-if-gps-location-services-are-turned-off/

 

Quote

Data used to track the device include the phone's time zone and information from its sensors, like air pressure, a Princeton press release said. When mixed with public information like maps, a device's location can be estimated without location services.

That's an article about using a security exploit to access the barometric sensor information to retrieve a users air pressure reading, and then combine it with the data of the systems date/time zone clock information, and then compare that information against a weather map with barometric readings to guesstimate what region the phone may be in. In the video attached to the article the guy discusses how it could in theory be used to determine if someone is visiting a "region with geo-political issues". As in tracking if they're in Syria, not if they're in their local brothel. Technically knowing whether or not someone is in the state of Nevada is 'tracking' them, however that doesn't mean it's accurate.

That has absolutely nothing to do with location based ad services. The location data that is used by the ad services to serve location specific ads is gathered from the location services reported by the device, ie GPS location and wifi positioning.

 

42 minutes ago, Eaglerino said:

Ah well missed the part in the article. I'm not pro-choice but if it's legal then there's no reason to get targeted ads and this is disturbing they even have the phone numbers

They. Don't.

Whenever you open a page that is served by, for example, Google Ad Services, it will display an ad. Which ad that is displayed with be based on a number of factors, such as what age google estimates (or knows) you to be, what gender you are, what your shopping habits are, what ads you've previously clicked on, what location you're in, and a whole bunch more.

The phone is saying "Hey, I'm a male aged 35 and I'm currently located in GPS coordinates X&Y (Texas), give me an ad"
And the ad server is saying "Hmm, oh, here you go, here's an ad that will suit you, it's an ad for Cowboy Boots".

When you are paying for google to host your ad, you can have the ad be targeted to your target audience. In this case let's say it's Men aged 21 - 35, within the state of Nevada. And that ad might be an ad for a Las Vegas casino which pictures hot babes in bikinis at the tables. Lots of men aged 21-35 in Nevada will probably find that appealing and interesting. You probably wouldn't bother serve the same ad to a Woman, aged 72, in Florida, as it's far less likely that the ad of bikini babes in Vegas would appeal to a little old retired lady on the other side of the country. Instead you would show her an ad for something that people in her category are more likely to buy, like an Agatha Christie murder mystery novel.

With Google Map data which contains information about businesses and specific locations, you can serve even more specific ads with even more specific locations.
For example, if you're walking around a Walmart store and you're doing some google searches while you're there, then one of the ads you might see could be an ad for 20% discount on 50" TV at Walmart. The chance of a customer committing to buying the product advertised after seeing the ad will be much higher if they're already shopping in the store that is advertising it when they are served the ad.
You'll look at your phone reading your TMZ article about Roseanne being racist as you wander the aisles and on the side of the article will be an ad that says "Walmart currently has 20% off this 50" TV" and think to yourself, hmm, well I'm already here so I might check that out.

This type of location based ad servicing has been around for years. Heck, even the dodgy "Sexy milfs in your city of New York want to screw!" that have been on the internet for decades thanks to IP location tracking are a type of location based ad.

 

The only difference is instead of a business advertising their own products whenever you're in their location, some lawyers are paying to advertise their business ads to people who are within the location of a hospital. Likewise the religious groups are paying to advertise their religious propaganda to people who are within the location of a family planning/abortion clinic.

The people paying for the ads aren't delivering the ad directly to the user, it's going through an ad service such as Google Ad Services. The people paying for the ad aren't able to track who is viewing the content or get their phone number or their name or anything like that*. (*unless they click the ad that directs them to a website that then collects that information. For example, if you click an ad for the lawyers which takes you to the lawyers website and then it asks you to book an appointment and you type in your name and phone number in a web form to make an appointment - However to be clear this has nothing to do with the ad being served)
The most they will get is a report at the end of the month saying "Your ad has been shown to 5,192 people, and 39% of that were male, 61% female. 12% were aged between 13-18, 38% were aged between 18-40", etc.

 

[laminutederire]

That's why you get GDPR!

[Spotty]

Here's the information from the company providing the ad services to the law firm chasing hospital attendees.

The advertisement company collects your "Advertiser ID" and your location data from over 180,000 apps that agree to send them your information. Whenever the company detects you as being within a zone that has been set up (GPS co-ordinates), it will then associate your advertising ID with that zone and push you the relevant ads for that zone, for up to 30 days after you leave the zone. It will then serve those up through standard means such as displaying them inside of apps (presumably the 180,000+ apps that are sending the advertisement company your information) or on websites you visit (whichever websites get paid to display this companies ads).

I was also wrong with my statements that turning off location services will stop the location based ads from displaying.
Turning off your location services will block the device from being detected as being within the zone and associating your device with the advertisements, however, if your device previously had location services enabled and it was previously detected in the zone, you may still receive ads for up to 30 days, even if your device location services has since been switched off after the initial detection.

I've added bold to some more important points.

Quote

How Pintelligence Advertising Works

• Geo Targeting – Pintelligence targeting technology is triggered when a mobile phone enters a designated location.
• Collecting Advertising ID’s - Each time someone enters the geo-targeted area, within 5-10 min our technology captures the Advertising ID from mobile phones. This includes both iPhones and Android phones. Agreements with 180,000+ applications for both Android & Apple devices allow us to get these Advertising ID’s. apps like Google Maps and weather apps are just a fraction of apps included in this agreement.
• Once the users ID is captured we deliver ads almost immediately thru several real-time bidding ad networks that will show your ad almost immediately from any one of thousands of main stream contextual websites or applications. As many people have shared accounts on their phone and home/work computers & tablets, we can also identify many of these devices and show your ads continuously for up to 30 days or more across all devices.

 

Quote

Key Pintelligence Benefits

•  A virtual geofence is traced around an event location where the advertiser wants to build an audience based on their visit to that particular location during a set, scheduled timeframe.
• When people enter the geo-fenced location during the set timeframe, they will then become a part of an audience that can later be targeted following the event.
• As the user visits various apps downloaded on their phone (Angry Bird, Weather Channel, Emoji Keyword, Words With Friends) or browses the internet on the mobile browsers, they begin to see ads from said advertiser.
• User can see those Ads for 1 day and up to 30 days after he/she has entered the geo fence.

 

Quote

Here are a few examples of what PinTelligence marketing can do:

•     Personal Injury Lawyers can legally reach accident victims in emergency rooms, chiropractors offices, pain mgmt. & more.
•     Immigration, social security & disability attorneys can reach those waiting in government offices.
•     Car dealership can target customers actively shopping for a new or used vehicle.
•     Restaurant group can target stadiums and event venues and serve ads and offer specials to fill their empty seats.
•     Chiropractors can target gyms and health clubs.
•     Nightclubs can target other nightclubs.
•     Local attractions can target hotel guests.
•     Mattress store can target consumers shopping at other mattress stores.

 

Quote

The Possibilities For Hyper Local Targeting Are Endless:

•     Event Targeting
•     Sporting & Music Events
•     Conferences/Conventions
•     Competitor Locations
•     Customer Loyalty Programs
•     Stadiums
•     Office Buildings
•     Malls & Strip Centers

http://pintelligence.ai/

https://tellalldigital.com/

 

 

[ScratchCat]

+ Hay Alexa

- Good Morning Sir or Madam

+ What can you offer me today?

- I see you are in prison. People who are in prison are recommended The tunnel building guide and reinforced shovels. Shall I order there for you?

 

1 hour ago, laminutederire said:

That's why you get GDPR!

Also:

1. Disable GPS
2. Disable location services
3. Add a firewall and block most apps
4. Disable background data usage
5. Disable mobile data unless needed
6. Get rid of the majority of Google made apps (Why should Maps autostart?)
7. Frequently wipe cookies/ Don't use Chrome (Links with 6)

[Sauron]

I make it a matter of principle to never do business with any company that does telephone advertisements.

[jagdtigger]

5 minutes ago, ScratchCat said:

+ Hay Alexa

- Good Morning Sir or Madam

+ What can you offer me today?

- I see you are in prison. People who are in prison are recommended The tunnel building guide and reinforced shovels. Shall I order there for you?

 

Also:

1. Disable GPS
2. Disable location services
3. Add a firewall and block most apps
4. Disable background data usage
5. Disable mobile data unless needed
6. Install AOSP based ROM and FDroid
7. Frequently wipe cookies/ Don't use Chrome (Links with 6)

FIFY...

[Sniperfox47]

People seem to somehow me mistaking this as people making phone calls to users. That's not the case.

 

This is just your typical web ads and in-app ads. Nothing special. Nothing to see. Move alone.

[asus killer]

46 minutes ago, ScratchCat said:

 

 

Also:

1. Disable GPS
2. Disable location services
3. Add a firewall and block most apps
4. Disable background data usage
5. Disable mobile data unless needed
6. Get rid of the majority of Google made apps (Why should Maps autostart?)
7. Frequently wipe cookies/ Don't use Chrome (Links with 6)

1. throw your phone into the river

2. go live in the woods with no cell phone service

3. frequently drive to the next internet cafe to see the latest sandals with socks wearing dude

[ScratchCat]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

1. throw your phone into the river

2. go live in the woods with no cell phone service

3. frequently drive to the next internet cafe to see the latest sandals with socks wearing dude

A cheap T9 cell phone would also work.

1. No data connection so harder to leak information.
2. No GPS
3. Warning: This next statement may sound impossible to those who have used a high end phone in the last few years, please sit down to take the shock. Can take out battery to disable all communication.
4. Market share of ~1% so hardly a tracking malware target.

[DoctorWho1975]

2 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

People seem to somehow me mistaking this as people making phone calls to users. That's not the case.

 

This is just your typical web ads and in-app ads. Nothing special. Nothing to see. Move alone.

 

Considering this is the first time it has actually moved into the medical world it is special, you can move alone.

[laminutederire]

4 hours ago, ScratchCat said:

+ Hay Alexa

- Good Morning Sir or Madam

+ What can you offer me today?

- I see you are in prison. People who are in prison are recommended The tunnel building guide and reinforced shovels. Shall I order there for you?

 

Also:

1. Disable GPS
2. Disable location services
3. Add a firewall and block most apps
4. Disable background data usage
5. Disable mobile data unless needed
6. Get rid of the majority of Google made apps (Why should Maps autostart?)
7. Frequently wipe cookies/ Don't use Chrome (Links with 6)

Sure but I do prefer having companies to have the burden of not tracking me rather than having to do a lot of things to prevent them from doing it too much.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

It's also possible simply connecting to the Hospital WiFi network would attract the ads as the WiFi network itself can provide location information. 

[EPENEX]

This isn't new or even bothersome, just turn off location when not in use, remove all Google services from your phone, and block ads in your phone's hosts file.