You know you're a marketing whore when...

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its the same principles as users having wireless without any security....

 

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As a general rule, most devices ship with this locked down. If someone opens it up, well, who am I to argue?

Not quite. If I forget to lock my door to my home and someone enters without permission, that's unethical. If I unlock the door AND post a welcome sign, I really have no business complaining when someone walks in.

I wouldn't consider doing UCE as that is an invasion of privacy to me. Now, if someone solicits my business information (like turning on a vCard exchange feature), I regard that as fair game.

And quite frankly, if someone is that eggshell brittle that they'll flip over the vCard thing, I probably don't want them as a customer anyhow. I'd rather send the high-maintenance customers to my competition. Let them lose money.

 

You're taking a huge leap of logic here. You're assumption is that everyone is posting a welcome sign, but knowing how technically unsophisticated the general public is you know you're taking advantage of those less technically sophisticated than yourself.

Who cares if you don't consider it an invasion of privacy? It's not your phone that's being targeted. You're doing the targeting whether the people you're targeting do or not. It displays a total lack of respect for other people. Your attitude is "I can, so I will. Screw them if they don't like it."

In your eyes, anyone particular about their personal privacy is "brittle". What a display of attitude on your part.

You don't want customers who highly value respect, privacy, and being treated with dignity. Well, I can guarantee you, you won't be getting them, no matter how much money they spend with your competition. And, people who value those things also value the privacy and rights of others so they are most often very prompt about paying their bills because they are honest. Those are the customers businesses want.

 

Your not moving to the Darkside are you?

 

Wow Freddy that is really harsh to say those things about someone you really don't know. Hills would not be opening a second location if his skills were not in demand and the customers were not there. And he would not have the customers he does if it wasn't for the customers sending more his way. He is not an unethical person nor disrepctfull Freedy as you are implying.

It is not a bad thing he is doing. What is the difference between him doing that and people that go around with wireless laptops to see what bussiness wireless is wide open. Then alerting them of it? They are not entering their network but letting them know that they could. Is that wrong too?
I don't belive what Q is doing even come close to that and I don't think that is bad. I think that is a way of offereing someone your services just with different tactics.

 

I don't consider it to be all that harsh, just truthful. What he is doing is no different than someone spamming a forum.

Here's the similarities:

1. The open sign is up because the site is operating.

2. People are encouraged to register.

3. The site is designed to accept posts.

So what's the difference? You hate people who sign up just to spam for a business. You have nothing good to say about them whatsoever.

What's the difference? He is doing absolutely the same thing, only he's doing this to anyone who is unfortunate enough to walk by his business with their phone misconfigured rather than to a website. He is, in fact, being far more personal in his attacks than any spammer on any website. He's spamming them on their own personal devices not a site designed to generate web traffic.

 

He isn't spamming PORN freddy. Nor is he stealing anyone blind. He is not doing anything illegal. He is not trying to cheat any sites out of advertising revenue. But what he is doing is bringing awareness to those that are tech challenged. Hey your phone is wide open to the world. If they know this then fine to choose to let it be so. If they don't realise this, then I do hope they do have enough sense to seek anwser and find out how it happen and how to stop it. Your acting like he is pirating software or something and you are starting to slander someone morals that you know nothing about.

 

I'm taking advantage of publicly available spectrum to advertise my services using a technological framework that was designed specifically for this purpose. This is no less ethical than businesses who set up low power FM stations to broadcast their wares to passing motorists. If you don't want to hear the broadcast, change the channel or turn off the radio already.

Was this forum specifically set up for the automated exchange of contact information? If not, I wouldn't blast it with advertising (although if you'd like to follow the link in my profile and by one of my lovely photographic prints, who am I to complain?). Once again, allow me to point out that...

The vCard exchange feature that I use to broadcast my business card was explicitly built into Bluetooth for that purpose. Anyone who has that feature enabled can be considered to have given their assent to receiving my information.

I don't send out unsolicited commercial e-mails. That's wrong. I don't even send out bulk snail mail advertising as that's not only intrusive, but wasteful and damaging to the environment.

Hm... Nearly two days later I've had no complaints, but I just had three laptops dropped off by an employee of an oil company in town who didn't realize I was here until my card popped up on his handheld (I'm waiting until it's warmer before I put up my big sign). With the memory upgrades he asked for that's $400 worth of work.

My attitude pays well.

 

Steve and I were discussing this earlier today, and I'd like to make a couple of points.

Firstly, most mobile phone companies choose nowadays to disable Bluetooth capability by default, leaving it up to the user to decide if they wish to utilise it or not. Its a fairly safe assumption to make that all phones are similarly configured out of the box. This leads to the assumption that the users have intentionally enabled this. I dont know if the vcard feature is additional to enabling bluetooth - my phone doesnt seem to have a specific option for it.

In this regard, I dont see pushing out an e-business card being any different to someone standing in the street and thrusting a leaflet at me for a shop. If I want it, I take it, if I dont, I refuse. This electronic flyering is just the same prospect. If you dont want it, you dont need to accept it.

The point was raised (during our discussions) that if you dont know how to use a piece of technology, you have no business using it. I disagree with this, in that its the same with cars, and wireless, etc. I know how a car works as far as I need to know to make the car go. I dont know the detailed inner workings, or how to tweak it to be 'safer' or 'more efficient'. Does that mean I shouldnt be allowed to use a car? No. its up to the manufacturer to ship the car to me in a condition that is tolerably safe and efficient - enough to satisfy a broad base of their customers. I have no idea what benefits might be gained from tweaking the engine components, and I agree that I have no right pissing around inside the engine without first properly researching the aspect im tweaking, and the effects it might have.

In this regard, Bluetooth is the same. Its up to the manufacturer to ship it out in a default configuration suitable to most people, and safest for those customers. They do, and its called 'OFF'. If a user tweaks the settings without being aware of what exactly its going to do, then they need to be prepared to accept the consequences of their blind fiddling - be that hosing the phone, or allowing people to access their personal data, or just receiving a few unwanted messages. If they arent prepared to take those consequences, then they should leave well enough alone until such time as they understand what their actions cause. There are numerous sources they can find out about particular features, and their consequences.

So, with that in mind, sending out e-flyers to those in range, set to receive them, is no less ethical, legal, or moral, than standing in the street with a flyer, handing it out to people as they pass. Infact, when you consider the environmental impact of flyering compared to e-flyering, you could argue that its more so, since the impact on the environment of configuring a machine (that you are probably using for other things anyway) to send this out is likely to be less than printing pieces of paper (damaging forests), and giving them to people who will most likely just litter with them.

 

Your statement that you have received no complaints is blatantly untrue. You're hearing from me. I'm telling you that if you did this to me I'd be angry.

Also, I ran this by several people today. The way I did it was to ask, with no preface, if after they had been walking around downtown they noticed that a business had placed a vcard in their phone would they be happy or unhappy about this. No one that I asked would have been pleased that a business had taken it upon themselves to do this. They didn't appreciate it on several levels. First, their phones have only so many contact slots available and this would cause them to have to delete the intrusive entry. Second, their phone is their private property and it was accessed and modified without their explicit approval.

Lastly, they said they would remember the business, but not positively, and would not do business with someone who did this to them. Every one of the guys I work with felt that way, and so did my wife, step kids, and a couple of neighbors. Not a one would have responded positively to this. None of them would have actually made a complaint to the offending businessman as I would do, but they would simply never use that business for anything. All of them thought it crossed the line into being intrusive and pushy. All of them thought it showed a lack of respect for them personally.

 

Freddy, your being an arse...

 

So you're saying that you would have been angry after explicitly enabling vCard exchanges on your device, right?

Then you're not giving them the entire scenario.

If you asked someone, "Would you be upset if a homeless guy was sleeping in your basement?", then they'd probably say yes. But if you asked someone, "Would you be upset if a homeless guy was sleeping in your basement after telling the guys at the homeless shelter that they could sleep in your basement?", then you'd get a different answer... because you're giving them the entire scenario.

Thus, you should be asking people, "Would you be upset about getting a vCard after configuring your phone to accept vCards from people?"

 

You're not in my target audience and therefore don't count. People who can fix their own machines generally don't hire my services.

Also, given that I haven't actually done this to you (yet*), you'll forgive me for regarding your complaint as somewhat spurious.

*I'm thinking of using my old Ka-band dish to hijack a satellite and vSpam every Bluetooth device in the U.S. because, well, it'd be fun, and I'd just hate for you to feel left out.

Tell you what... Ask them how they'd feel if a complete stranger walked up to them and booted them in the ass. When they act indignant, point out the KICK ME signs they're wearing: that's the part your earlier question missed.

 

Honey, I never left.

 

Freddy,

You are complaining and you haven't even received a v card from him, so how can you complain about something when it hasn't affected you directly?

So lets not complain for the sake of complaining.

 

I have a completely new stance on all of this complaining, unless it is directly affecting me and the way I lead my life and what I do, I will not complain.

If I personally receive a lot of spam, I just delete and move on.

As you are fully aware there are spam filters on email accounts so if you set the up correctly you shouldn't see any spam anyway

 

It's switched off by default. Unless you specifically enable the feature, you won't get vCards.

 

Let's see. I'm clearly seen as an out-of-kilter human being around here so let's just compare my point of view the ones being expressed here.

First let's take Fergal's idea of that anyone using a computer should be an expert or be ready to suffer the attacks of those more skilled than themselves. He used the analogy of a car. Fine, I'll extend his analogy by asking a few pertinent questions.

1. Should an ordinary, or even poor driver, have to fear being run off the road or having his car messed with by drivers who are more skilled and have far better mechanical skills? If not, why should an ordinary person have to fear such things in computer-related technology? Shouldn't there be enough respect between individuals that the ordinary computer user shouldn't have to worry?

2. If I absentmindedly forget my keys in the ignition, am I deliberately asking to have my car stolen? Isn't the fault with the person who is so ethically challenged that they will steal my car the person with the real problem and the one that is the bane on society as a whole?

3. If I leave a car door unlocked because a friend needs to retrieve something from my car because I'm not going to be around why should I have to worry? Shouldn't there be enough respect between individuals that I shouldn't have to worry that someone else might steal his property and mine? An unlocked door is not an open invitation to anyone to enter.

Now to the specific issue at hand. If I open up a setting on my phone so that a friend can send me his information at my request, why should I have put with someone else taking advantage of that fact and putting something on my phone that I never requested, and never left open with the idea of them putting something on my phone? That's an invasion of my space. Shouldn't there be enough respect between individuals so that only if I specifically request information that my phone will not be used as a way to target me for advertising that I'm not interested in? Why is that an unreasonable attitude?

This idea that just because something is technically possible that it should be done is pure hogwash. Where is the respect for another individual in that attitude? I fail to see any respect for humanity as a whole in that attitude.

The comparison to handing out flyers on a street corner is also flawed. It's the same in that I am walking past, that's where the comparison breaks down. When someone comes up to me and tries to give me one I can make the decision and say yes or no at that time. If my phone is configured to accept something for the convenience of my friends that doesn't mean I want just any entity I walk past to load their information in my phone. That's no different than spamming me. The principle is just the same. Yes, I have an email client and I'm hooked up to the internet, but that doesn't mean I want every possible piece of junk that people send out. The same with some business spamming me with their information. Just because it's possible doesn't make it right.

 

So, basically, what the several pages of protestation of innocence boils down to is that you rape people's phones, but they are asking for it? Your choice of words rather betrays your own attitude to your actions. Why describe it as rape if you think it's a perfectly innocent and moral way to behave?