With the big news that Amazon is acquiring Whole Foods, this article regarding their latest patent is getting no love. The patent titled "Physical store online shopping control", is quite an interesting one that got approved. It general it;
details a system that would prevent customers from comparing prices in Amazon stores by watching any online activity conducted over its wi-fi network, detecting any information of interest and responding by sending the shopper to a completely different web page — or even blocking internet use altogether.
It also can enable Amazon to send you a text, push notification or email in response to what you’re looking at online, just by connecting to their network via through their app. This app is the one that would allow customers to walk in and out of the store without having to go to a cash register.
EDIT
The app NEEDS to connect to amazons connection in order to work
What do you think?
Should this be allowed or is Amazon going too far?
They could also have done this to block their competitors from doing it, and have no plans on implementing it themselves.
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The patent system in the states is pretty messed up and there are some ridiculous patents out there (watch Shark Tank for some examples lol). Anyways I doubt this is something they would actually use imo it would cause too much of a shitstorm
First thing that came to mind:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fhd4fpqDj_E
so stay off their wifi?
Looks like it will be required you log into their connection to be able to use the app. Without the app, the store is useless to you lol
So this boils down to: "if you use our wifi, you can't compare prices." Am I reading this right? I'm not sure I get it 100%.
If you want to get your groceries from them you will deal with it. I have never gone to a grocery store and compared prices online. If their prices are high then people will go elsewhere.
I have, by using an app to be able to price-match. The part I'm more worried about is them blocking internet use altogether, if it's not on their monitored network.
First of all, peasant. I don't compare prices for a grocery store. Second, they won't jam internet, unless they want to be called North Korea. PR is a real thing.
My guess is the patent works both ways. If a customer wants to search relevant data on a class of products (shampoos/steaks, etc.) , Amazon could redirect him to the relevant Amazon reference page containing all details about the product.
Exactly
Edit: Glad someone gave me monkey shit for this. Not sure why agreeing with a relevant statement is so offensive to you, but I get it, you're lonely.
Or poor. Or both.
I think that this is an interesting concept, but I don't think that they will use it because of security concerns. In addition, I don't think that it'll save too much time for consumers.
What if you have two phones... . . .
[one for the bitches and one for the dough](
)
I guess it depends if there's poor or good signal in the buildings. Either way they'll probably try and promote the use of the wi-fi but will be interesting to see if this piece of news spreads out to the average joe or not.
Pretty funny how Amazon built up their business by people going to retail stores and scanning the item to find it cheaper online. A bit hypocritical of them.
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