CueCat

Sep 30 22:11 UTC 2000

So, how much have you heard about the the Cue:Cat?  How much of it do you
believe?

response 2 of 57:

Sep 30 23:02 UTC 2000

It's a little cat-shaped (yes, isn't it cute?) barcode scanner that hooks into
the keyboard port of a PC.  Comes free with your Radio Shack catalog, from
Wired magazine, etc.  Those 2 publications include topical barcodes so you
can scan a page or an item and get more info from the web.

response 4 of 57:

Oct 1 03:27 UTC 2000

A gadget that makes it easier to get more advertising to those too lazy 
or incapacitated to type in a web address?  Ah, the wonders of modern 
technology...

response 6 of 57:

Oct 1 05:55 UTC 2000

oh, btw, each one has a unique identifier in it.  instructions exist to
disable it, but until you do, YOU"RE BEING TRACKED

response 8 of 57:

Oct 1 10:03 UTC 2000

Cue:Cat is a barcode reader.

Whenever you scan something, Cue:Cat will either take you to a web page with
information about the item, or it will take you to a page where you can buy
the item. (For example, you could scan an empty box of granola bars, and it
would take you peapod.com to buy more. Or, you could scan a Woody Guthrie CD,
and it would take you to cdnow.com, and show you other albums that he did)

The revenue model is pretty simple. In exchange for giving you a barcode
reader (which is reasonably expensive), you agree to let Cue:Cat keep track
of things you're scanning. Cue:Cat then takes the aggregate information,
compiles it in to nice demographics, and sells the numbers for lots of money.
Secondarily, people trying to do targeted marketing can ask for custom
reports, which cost lots and lots of money. 

For example...

Nature's Valley wants to open up a new high-concept granola restaurant. From
their internal marketing, they know that women prefer their granola to men,
and that most women said that they frequently enjoy eating granola while using
their computers. 

So...Nature's Valley would ask for a basic report, asking where there are
proportionately more women than men. Since Cue:Cat is computer based, the
results they get will naturally show them where there are more female computer
users than male. Cue:Cat pulls out a report that shows that Boise Idaho has
37% more women than men, and Houston Texas has 23% more. Six months later,
people in Boisie are happily munching on their granola.

Another example...

Columbia House has found that sending out a "10 CD's for $1" mailer has worked
very well in most of Michigan. But, they've noticed that in the 48178, 48135,
and 48108 zip codes, their response rate is less than 0.003%. Columbia House
would go to Cue:Cat and ask "What kind of music do people in those zip codes
like?"

Cue:Cat would generate a report that shows that people in 48178 tend to scan
more country CD's than the rest of the state, 48135 scans more hard rock, and
48108 scans more new age. From there, Columbia House would know to send
mailers that are more centric to musical tastes in those areas.

Or...

Columbia House is starting a new "60's Protest Songs" club, which includes
retro knick-knacks and clothing. They know that the "add-on's" (everything
that's not a CD) generates more money, and that Gen X/Y people are more likely
to buy them. So, they'd ask Cue:Cat "What kind of people would be interested
in these products, and where are these people?"

Cue:Cat would generate a report that shows that 21% of males between 18 and
24 have scanned music of that genre, 14% of males between 25 and 30, 32% of
females between 18 and 24, and 53% of females between 25 and 30, all in the
48101 zip code. Cue:Cat could also show that of those females between 18 and
24, 30% have purchased clothing within the last 6 months, and 54% have
purchased gift items online within the past 3 months. 

(Ok...did I explain it to death?)

Now, in terms of security, yes, you do have to register your Cue:Cat. No, they
are not tracking you by name. They're tracking you by age, zip code, income,
ethnicity, maritial status, and residence status. Sorry folks, but the
scanners have to be paid for somehow.

Of course, there are probably people who are nervous giving out that
information. But, like it or not, you're giving up that privacy every time
you go to a website that uses a major adserving company. You are, in fact,
being tracked by your IP address. And you'd literally be amazed at the
aggregate data that a company can obtain, just by following you around a few
sites. The only caveat here, is if you've developed a program that checks
HTML for "*.doubleclick.net" (and close to a hundred other companies) and
prevents your browser from making a request. And even then, it's not possible
to block all tracking. They can be embedded in to JavaScript, or Java applets,
and it's unlikely that you'd be able to block spotlight tags.

There ya' go.

response 10 of 57:

Oct 1 13:52 UTC 2000

Yeah, it's the windows software.

But the unit's output turns out to have been "encrypted" with a ludicrously
simple scheme, so very quickly Linux people were figuring it out and then
publishing the results on the Web.  Did not make the parent company, Digital
Convergence (is that who you work for, Kevin?) happy at all that people could
use the unit and yet not send all their data through DC's servers.

So are these scanner just crappy or did I get a bad one?  It almost never
scans on the first swipe, and orientation of the scanner is critical as well.

response 12 of 57:

Oct 1 22:23 UTC 2000

I was sent a free one, but my keyboard port is not easily accessible, and it
doesn't seem like it's worth the bother to pull the computer out to connect and
 to install the software to run it.

response 14 of 57:

Oct 1 23:08 UTC 2000

I've heard a lot about the :Cue:Cat:, and I detest most of it.
(Fortunately, I can bypass all of it for my own purposes.)

I view the serial number "feature" of the scanner as an extension of
surveillance technology, like browser cookies (which I have turned
OFF, along with Java and Javascript).  If you use the packaged software
(big IF) it allows every scan to be tracked back to a particular
scanner, and thus linked to a given individual.

This far more invasive than traditional sales-tracking methods.  If
a company wanted to know what music is selling in a given area, there
are already a bunch of sources of non-individually-identifiable data 
that would tell them exactly what they want to know.  Aggregating the
sales info from music stores, mail- and web-order outfits like CD Now
and Amazon, and concert tickets would yield almost all the information
they could want.  But they wouldn't get names and addresses.  

What do they need names and addresses for?  Nothing worthwhile.
Cardinal principle of privacy:  only essential information should ever
be collected, and it should be kept only as long as it is needed for
its purpose.  Taking names and addresses at all violates this principle;
the entire business model would probably be illegal in the EU.

If knowledge is power and power corrupts, the more knowledge advertisers
have about individuals the more capability they will have to manipulate
people and the more likely they are to do it amorally or cynically.  The
power is all with the corporation, none with the individual.  This is wrong.

Sometimes it is nice if a company tells me about something I didn't
realize I needed.  However, :Cue:Cat: can't do that for me, because I
already have to have the item (or its bar code) before it can do anything
for me.  All Digital Convergence's software can do is give DC an item by
item profile of the stuff that I buy or browse.  My response:  MYOB.  If
I try to use their system, DC will steer me to whatever supplier gives DC
the best deal, not the the best supplier for me.  My response:  FOAD.

Even worthwhile information does not outweigh the harassment of huge
quantities of junk mail.  I don't have time to read the masses of flyers
I get every week, so they go directly from the mailbox to the trash.  I
don't even get any benefit for my extra time carrying trash.  I'd ask to
be put on the "do not mail" list, but finding the addresses and sending
the letters takes more time than six months of flyer-tossing.

If DC is able to generate sales, they're doing more damage to our future.
The personal savings rate in the USA is already down to NEGATIVE 0.4% of
income.  People are spending money they don't have, and if we have a
slowdown in the economy it is likely to lead to a huge surge in our
already-record rate of bankruptcies and convert the slowdown to a
recession.  This would be bad, and it's all driven by excess consumption.

I'm doing my bit to prevent it.  I got a :Cue:Cat: which will never, ever
send any data to Digital Convergence's site.  If enough people do the same,
DC will never return its investment and it will go out of business.  This,
and the failure of their privacy-invasion-driven business model, will do
some good.  If it prevents the savings rate from going down even more, it
will do even more good.

What am I going to do with this hardware?  I'm going to scan the bar
codes on all of my CD's and keep them in a file for insurance purposes,
and maybe on my books as well.  Converting 6-bit to binary and doing
an XOR with 0x67 is a piece of cake, and I'm going to write my own code
just for fun.  I'm also thinking of using this as an excuse to build a
database of music stuff, because it's been too long since I did anything
interesting with a database.

Forbes and Wired have sent :Cue:Cat:s to their subscribers.  I've seen
people who've said they put them directly in the trash, and others
suggesting that they have scanner-smashing protests outside Radio Shack.
I'm going to put mine to a better use than that, thanks.

response 16 of 57:

Oct 2 01:50 UTC 2000

  I was at Radio Shack the other day buying a couple of 9V batteries for
  my smoke detectors and so I asked the clerk for a :::C:ue::C:;;;a:T::
  (or however they spell it..)

  I've yet to hook it up and try it, but eventually I'll get around to
  writing some software to play with the thing..  Even if you never plan
  to use it with Digital Convergence's software (which I agree is probably
  not something a privacy sensitive user wants to install on their computer)
  I think you can expect to see some interesting applications coming along
  from programmers who're interested in coding new programs now that they
  have thousands of potential users with cheap (or better, free!) scanners.

response 18 of 57:

Oct 2 03:48 UTC 2000

I'm happy to be included in market research, as long as they can find a way
to do so that doesn't involve me spending any time on it.  I figure it
increases the chances that when I want to buy something, somebody will have
produced it and will want to sell it to me.  If there's something I don't
want, or a price I'm not willing to pay for something, good market research
should note that and allow the manufacturer to correct the situation (at
least, if enough of their representative sample agrees with me).

I'm a bit surprised, though, that something like this has to get its money
from market research.  Since it's allowing people to scan in ads and get more
information about the advertised product, this seems like something the
advertisers who include the bar codes in their ads would be willing to pay
for.

response 20 of 57:

Oct 2 14:04 UTC 2000

i like having my spending habits tracked.   i sign up for all the e-mail
notices that reflect what i am interested in.  i've scored some great buys
that way.  i don't care if some faceless entity knows what i am doing.

response 22 of 57:

Oct 2 17:41 UTC 2000

  re #21:  That may be "said", but I can't possibly imagine it being true.

response 24 of 57:

Oct 6 19:00 UTC 2000

A quick query at Freshmeat returned 12 entries, if DC is applying
pressure, it isn't working.