Nick May wrote:
>Is the transaction logged to a particular keitai - or is it anonymous?
>
>
I am not sure about your questions, so my answers may be a little off topic,
tell me if I misunderstood...
As you have only one IC card in a keitai, and one phone number per keitai,
DoCoMo at least have the table associating the two so can effectively
know what
is happening (user behaviour). However, I think it is unlikely they open
this information
to other companies.
>How much "user tracking" is available....?
>
>
DoCoMo can know how much and on what you spend your IC money.
If your "tracking" idea also involves user location, DoCoMo is able to
associate an antenna positioning info to every transaction.
But this information is probably too imprecise to be really useful.
However, the subway/train gate or shop where you buy has also you
payment info,
which may or may not be anonymous, but the Japanese controlling-mania
probably
led them to include those details. AM/PM can know which user paid what
but may not be able to associate this with DoCoMo's customers information.
They will have to use their own (you know that everytime you buy
something in
a convenience store, they type your gender, estimated age, etc.) to they can
do interesting analysis).
>anyone have details?
>
>I suppose having a keitai and leaving it switched on allows one to be
>tracked anyway, so it is only a small additional loss of privacy. It does
>give thieves an extra motive to pinch handsets though.
>
>
You are probably right about the additional interest for thieves, but
you probably also
know that keitai theft is almost negligible compared to what happens in
SIM-equipped countries.
As for the tracking, also, as IC does not rely on network, I am not sure
what you mean
by tracking with an "always-on keitai" : the only geographical tracking
possible is
the network check the mobile performs from time to time, which can only
give an
antenna positioning, certainly not enough to spot somebody in the street.
>Nick
>
>
For Christopher : what I meant by "recent improvements on FOMA" is that
now FOMA handsets are decent enough to be used in replacement of the
2.5G ones,
which has not been the first 2 years of FOMA service. DoCoMo thought the
attractiveness
of video-phones would compensate for bulky-short-batteried-badly covered
handets
(like "3" did later at their own expenses...) but customers did not like
the inferior
user experience and as the video phone function is only attractive when
your friends also
have it, there was a chicken-and-egg situation there also.
Last, there may be some regulatory issues for DoCoMo in handling cash : when you are
a mobile phone company, you are not supposed at first to provide banking-related
services (even if the amount is limited), which may limit what DoCoMo can do
by themselves.
-- Cheers,
-- Benjamin
Received on Fri Jun 25 11:04:31 2004