I just spent a week in beautiful Costa Rica. My family and I swim, sail, snorkel, communicate with wildlife, and parachute high above the Pacific Ocean.
We didn’t see any pokemon. That’s because, unlike much of the rest of humanity, we weren’t looking for someone to use the app that has taken the world by storm: Pokémon Go.
Surprisingly, my pre-teen daughter didn’t object to our Pokémon-free existence. To my great satisfaction, she seems to enjoy more cerebral activities… mostly.
But even if he had begged me, I would have refused to give in. No Pokémon Go for us. That’s because I don’t like turning my family into tradable data points… and neither should you.
Unfortunately, Pokémon Go is the least of our worries in this regard…
Pokémon Go: the product is you
Veterans like me remember paying for the software. Do you remember upgrading to a new version of Windows or Microsoft Office every year or so? In those days, getting complex apps for free, like those available for today’s smartphones, was unthinkable.
This is because, until about five years ago, the software itself was the product from which developers made a profit. It was no different from selling cars, refrigerators, or any other complex manufactured product.
No more. I still pay a nominal fee each year to “subscribe” to updates to some software products, but many of the ones I use on a daily basis are completely free.
It is not that they are cheap to develop, quite the contrary. Today’s software is vastly more complex and powerful than the stuff we used to pay hundreds of dollars for.
This is because the current software is not the revenue generating part of the business model. It is not the main thing that is sold for profit.
You are.
Beware of gift-bearing geeks
In recent years, I have repeatedly warned that piracy is only part of the threat of the digital age. Less obvious, and more insidious, is the process by which you become a commodity that the companies whose products you use can trade for profit.
The best-known examples are large online teams like Google and social networks like Facebook. Both provide their user-facing services for free. However, both spend most of their efforts not on improving those services, but on collecting information about you that can be sold to the highest bidder.
My favorite example is the poor guy who googled “pancreatic cancer” and started seeing ads online for funeral homes. Another is the parent who received a mailing from some company with the words “DAUGHTER KILLED IN CAR ACCIDENT” printed on the envelope. Some idiot had messed up the marketing algorithm and the targeting criteria was being printed on thousands of banner ads.
Google and Facebook (and many others) started making money selling microtargeted online ads to third parties like those funeral homes. But they quickly learned that they could make even more money by selling the data that advertisers use to do that microtargeting. Precise numbers are hard to find, but with marketing companies reporting 200-300% revenue increases using such data, it’s safe to say that big data collectors are coining it by selling to you.
Pokémon Go takes this a step further. It has no ads at all. To the user, it appears completely ad-free. But advertisers will continue to pay to reach those users… in a much more dangerous way.
Boldly go where no app has gone before
Pokémon Go has been downloaded 20 million times in the US. It has just launched in Asia and Europe. Nintendo’s stock price has skyrocketed more than 50% in two weeks. Pokémon Go has already surpassed Twitter in daily active users and is even closing in on Facebook.
While the app is free, users can make in-app purchases, such as lures to attract Pokémon to their location or “cages” to keep them. However, the game is about to unleash one of the most powerful advertising campaigns in digital history… all by selling frighteningly detailed information about its users.
For example, the app will soon offer “sponsored placements” to paying partners. Geotargeting and geofencing technology will allow advertisers to target specific buildings and match them to signals from mobile devices. Advertisers will know exactly where you are and will serve ads based on your precise location, just like the infamous mall scene in minority report.
By paying a large fee to the developers of Pokémon Go, a brand like McDonald’s (whose logo has already been seen in the code for Pokémon Go) will be able to turn its stores into desirable places in the virtual universe of Pokémon. That will draw players to those places, where they will be tempted to buy things “in real life”, in real life. Advertisers will be charged on a “cost per visit” basis, similar to the “cost per click” that Google charges advertisers.
Get all
Initial reports that Pokémon Go collects detailed Google account information, such as the content of emails, appear to have been incorrect.
But app owners don’t need those things. They are going for something bigger. They want to know your location at all times so they can sell that information to the highest bidder.
Judge Louis Brandeis once defined privacy as “the right to be left alone.” If that’s what you want, it’s up to you to make sure it happens.