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by nprateem 1404 days ago
Expect to have to install an app for every store you want to go into over the next few years with all the accompanying snooping. This tech is a wet dream for retailers.

Who needs store cards when they can just see in realtime what you're picking up and putting back, along with your demographic data.

6 comments

You mean like trying to drive through Germany in an electric car and having multiple standards/vendors for the chargers each with their own app, no cash, no maestro or credit card option. Especially funny when in an area with poor mobile reception (basically rendering the charger somewhat useless).

Having these competing non-standards is a pita for customers as well as for adoption. I would think that it would be the same for jwo.

So far those EV chargers are mostly funded by government incentives and store owners trying to attract rich clients.

When the EV charger industry gets cutthroat competitive on the service itself, the requirements to use an app will probably vanish because they don't want you to pass on their charger just because of the friction of signing up.

And then expect Apple to come along with a solution that 1. Protects your privacy and 2. Locks you into their ecosystem even more
There’s not much room for privacy when you can only shop there by scanning a barcode linked to your account and having cameras pointed at you that are likely reading your emotions/seeing if you pick up an item then put it back (as the OP pointed out).
Sure although it is worth noting that Apple's privacy protections are more of a legal framework than a technical one.
I used to resist getting a store card for this very reason, until I realize that they can track me through the credit card that I used anyway. This requires the self checkout machine to record the credit card number from the POS though - does the POS expose this information?
The POS can store anything that can trace a customer. It wouldn't be hard to derive a unique token from the credit card information, so it doesn't have to deal storing anything sensible.
> Who needs store cards when they can just see in realtime what you're picking up and putting back, along with your demographic data.

Not just that - also track your eyes to see what else you've anticipated.

This tech can be a wet dream for retailers but not if Amazon is providing it.

Retailers hate Amazon up to the point to avoid AWS - there are exceptions - to any of their cloud infrastructure.

Hate to admit it, but if it saves me time on checkout, they can have that information.