Ad Targeting Coming To Supermarket Fuel Stations

[engine]

Oh dear. I'm not too pleased to hear this, and will definitely be deliberately confusing the system if I have to use their filling stations.

Tesco is installing face-scanning technology at its petrol stations to target advertisements to individual customers at the till.The technology, made by Lord Sugar's digital signage company Amscreen, will use a camera to identify a customer's gender and approximate age.

It will then show an advertisement tailored to that demographic.

Tesco says the screens will be rolled out across all of its 450 forecourts in the UK.Ad Targeting Coming To Supermarket Fuel Stations [bbc.co.uk]

[SevenCubed]

From within the article:

Philip James, joint head of technology at Pitmans law firm, argues that this technology is similar to the way social media sites tailor adverts to users based on the content of their profiles.

Of course these folks always try to find a weak argument as to why it shouldn't be a concern to try to justify it to themselves.

In this case however the person is obviously unable to see beyond the whitewashed walls of his ivory tower.

In social media people are there by choice and are making use of technology by choice (even though mostly unaware of how they are being profiled).

A filling station covers a much more broad range of citizens most of whom are present out of necessity. Guess they had to find a way to allow the elderly to join in to the party too. Can't leave all those potential eyeballs untapped for commodity value.

Will there be any stones left unturned?

Next stop: install CCTVs in palliative care units to watch for signs of obvious patient deterioration and get the undertakers into bidding wars.

Oh my gosh.

[dstiles]

Boycott the fuel stations. Any half-way business-concious fuel station owner could easily play on that: "come here, we do not mug you".

I certainly will not visit tesco for fuel - never go to tesco for anything!

Oh, I forgot: I no longer have a car anyway: sold it because I never used it! :)

[engine]

As it happens, I rarely go to their fuel stations as they are not particularly competitively priced.

As with so many of these smart ideas, it really doesn't take into account privacy, which is being eroded day-by-day in many areas of our lives. Some may suggest i'm paranoid, and they are probably correct, but I don't like having the option of being unable to opt out, apart from not attending their fuel stations.

[nomis5]

Next stop: install CCTVs in palliative care units to watch for signs of obvious patient deterioration and get the undertakers into bidding wars.

Oh my gosh.

There's no "oh my gosh" about it. Some time back I was looking for a mobility scooter for my 90 year old mum and, no surprise, mobility scooter ads followed me around everywhere I browsed for the next few weeks.

Then suddenly they stopped and I was bombarded with funeral ads and ones for personal homecare. Made me feel a bit sick! Give it a try, bet the same happens to you.

Those stopped after a month or so but I suppose they reckoned there's no point in "flogging a dead horse".

[engine]

nomis5, that sounds bad, and I can understand why it upset you.

I was thinking more about that system at the fuel stations and thought that they could also use it to couple with the loyalty card scheme, too.