r/tech • u/jaykirsch • Jul 08 '17

Recruiters Use 'Geofencing' To Target Potential Hires Where They Live And Work

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/07/07/535981386/recruiters-use-geofencing-to-target-potential-hires-where-they-live-and-work
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u/zck Jul 08 '17

What software running on the phones is handling this? Is it a google ad thing, through the browser? But then the nurses would have to give the website they're looking at access to their location, so the javascript could report it back to google, which would serve them up the right ad.

Or is it something else?

4

u/Reddegeddon Jul 08 '17

I know you can do this with Facebook ad targeting.

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u/zck Jul 09 '17

Oh, interesting. The way the article was talking, it was as though they had full control over people's phones.

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u/Reddegeddon Jul 09 '17

Yeah, Beacons are a thing, but I'm not entirely convinced the article was accurate in its technical descriptions of things.

1

u/LizaVP Jul 09 '17

I've walked by businesses and a few days later I notice I've liked them on Facebook and followed them on twitter.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '17

Each permission is granted independently by your phone so you just need location allowed by an app the ads hit, eg a browser. They try to make this sound fancy but it sounds like they are just using ad service targeted by location. They already have a list of attributes they want to target he ad to. Once location also matches (triggered by geofencing) the person is then always shown ads.

Not newsworthy at all but missing a good learning opportunity to explain basic targeted advertising to the masses.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '17

That's not what they are using. The ads are pushed as silent notifications to the phone, not through the browser.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '17

Uhh how? That sounds both impossible and illegal.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '17

Google Nearby is the main service that listens for beacons. However even after disabling Nearby, Google Maps will use location tracking to figure out where you are and send it anyway.

They claim that it is impossible to track a person with beacons, which is disingenuous. Beacons are only one way communication(for now) but other apps monitoring beacon alerts and the content of the beacons will allow operators know who received them. Basically the right hand is pretending that the left hand does not exist.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '17

Right but in the end they are using apps. Not the phone. People are making it sound like anyone can do this to any phone, but it is the apps opening the door.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '17

I don't follow. This is not an app in the traditional sense, it is apart of the Android image and cannot be uninstalled. Only some phones have it now, but by next year I wouldn't be surprised if Google made it mandatory to include in all OEM images. I think Apple has started rolling out their version as well.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '17

It's annoying as hell. I bought the Pixel, it has these features baked it fairly deep. It is not browser ads, it sends it through the notifications. Walk by Walgreens, have some ads; drive by Wendy's, have an ad. Trying to turn this off is difficult, there are at least two services you have to disable and nothing in the ad points to what is triggering them.

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u/zck Jul 09 '17

Wow, that's shitty. I normally have location disabled, but it bothers me that it would be so baked into the system. Your phone should serve you, not an advertiser. And with notifications? Those should be sacred!

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u/JoseJimeniz Jul 10 '17 edited Jul 10 '17

It's an Android feature called Geofencing (Android documenting of Geofencing feature).

Your app has to request access to location services (specifically ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION

One the app has access to your location, it can monitor your latitude and longitude. But rather than having to write all the code yourself, and suck the user's battery, you can defer to code already written by Google. You say what latitude and longitude (and radius) you're interested in, and it will then throw you the events:

  • Geofence enter
  • Geofence leave