If they were interested in my location they could request location data. What are the odds they are doing this to directly market products to people based on health data?
Inb4 “They already do that based on what you regularly purchase”
Of course, yes they do. This appears to be one more layer on top of it. And surely they wouldn’t share that information with the pharmacy, right?
Words cannot express how much I hate phone apps being normalized for every goddamn thing.
I hate contemporary software norms.
I hate that people just install apps for whatever now. A fucking grocery store app on the phone? What code could the grocery store possibly need to run on my device? For online grocery shopping, just use their website.
There are zero retail store apps on my phones. I don’t need any store’s app. I get all the discounts I need via the web and paper coupons in the mail.
I get all the discounts I need via the web and paper coupons in the mail.
Well, you wouldn’t get Jewel’s discounts at all then. I stopped shopping there because they switched to app coupons but not everyone has multiple grocery store options
I’ve never heard of a Jewel’s grocery store before, so nothing of value is lost to me.
Generally, I agree. However, websites run like shit when you don’t have great service, say like inside the store and they have no wifi. App runs a lot smoother.
Why would I do such a thing if I were in the store? Might see if another store nearby has what I’m looking for if they don’t have it. Might be checking to see what aisle something is on because I’ve spent 10 minutes trying to find it on my own and I’m frustrated as hell because I know they have it cause I bough to last time I was there.
Another reason is because the website is less functional than their mobile website. So if I want to browse sales and make a shopping list while on the couch, it’s far easier to use the app than their website. And a lot of places focus more on apps than mobile websites so this is just going to get more common.
Though, truth be told. IDK why I ended up getting their app. I really, really, really hate being forced to get apps to do things. Lots of digital tickets are going to app only now: Ticketmaster, airlines, etc. Last time I went to Arby’s they had a sign in the drive thru saying to go to their website to look at coupons. Which then told me to go to their app to see them. Nope, you can fuck off.
I’ve never had any of those problems. Apps are not smoother than the web in general, they just are probably better at hiding latency and content loading process.
Also when I’m inside a grocery store, I don’t need an app or the website to find things since I can just walk over to them or ask an employee where the product is.
Our local grocery store chain lets you set up both pick up and delivery orders by selecting items, scheduling, and payment in the app; which is really just a wrapped website. While this might not be your use case; it’s certainly something that can be useful for people that are willing to pay an upcharge for convenience and/or time savings.
Why not just use their website instead of installing their code on your device? If they are competent their website should have all the above features.
They want to use your gyroscope to synchronize your movement within the store with their mapping of what products are on which shelves.
Historically this has been done by offering free in-store Wi-Fi and then triangulating the movement of cell phones within the store based on their signal strength from the perspective of the various Wi-Fi access point supporting the store’s network, but a gyroscope will even tell them if you crouch down or turn around.
That sounds pretty plausible I’ll give you that, and strictly speaking in iOS if they were gathering BMI and that type of data it would come up as a request for “Health”
So with that said to purpose would this information serve them given the way you described it? And is there any guarantee that it wouldn’t also be used to further build their marketing profile? Not trying to be argumentative, you have me genuinely curious now.
Nah, fuck em. Even the less sophisticated Wi-Fi approach is skeevy as fuck. I should just trust that the will only do what they say when given more than they need? Absolutely not. They might, but I wouldn’t rely on it.
You know, I almost thought for a minute there was going to be a chance there was something cool behind it, like, “it can guide you to the exact location of a product that you’re looking for with x,y,z precision such as how AirTags work” or, “they look at data to optimize placement of items in the store to make it easier for people to find things efficiently” but it’s actually just another degree of shittyness. That stinks.
I wish we had away to set up devices so they never need the WiFi handshake paradigm. Something like rolling code encryption for home and desired connection points while the device and home access point drop all that are not in sync and masquerade as a thousand others.
Not that it would make a difference when the hardware for the SoC and modem are undocumented, untrusted, and user space info is irrelevant to the actual hardware function. We can’t even turn off our devices any more in the Orwellian dystopia Osama bin Laden used to win the fight against freedom, liberty, and democracy.
Both wifi and Bluetooth has better anonymity options now via randomized client IDs, etc, but yeah I’d also like to see even better protocols.
Instead of just using antenna arrays for MIMO to maximize throughput you could instead use the arrays to reduce the signal strength for most traffic below the noise floor (like GPS) to make tracking much much harder. But it does add a lot of complexity too, and would probably be bad for batteries (the receiving end needs more power).
Is turning off WiFi sufficient in Android to stop my phone’s scanning attempts?
Inb4 “They already do that based on what you regularly purchase”
It’s never enough data for them.
I think the reason is likely their “Sincerly Health” program. Why anyone would trust their grocery store with any of their Health Data is beyond me though.
Apparently they consider me a security risk. Can’t fault them, to be honest.
I guess Jewel Osco is not into vegan cheesecake. A shame, because I think you’re delicious!
Thanks, darling. Though I gotta admit I had some pretty mediocre versions of, well, me, so I guess I’m hit or miss.
Lots of grocery stores have pharmacies. I wonder if health data collected through the app would be protected by HIPPA…
At least the pharmacies in our grocery stores are separate companies and usually just outside the store.
The ones I’m thinking of are inside the store and owned by the same corporation.