Author Topic: Walmart Gains Patent To Eavesdrop On Employees And Customers  (Read 1896 times)

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Offline Lola

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Walmart gains patent to eavesdrop on shoppers and employees in stores
The system would pick up scanner beeps, rustling bags and conversations.

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Walmart this week was awarded a US patent for a new listening system for its stores that could raise serious privacy concerns from its shoppers and workers.

According to the filing, the system would capture a variety of sounds in the store to figure out employees' performance and effectiveness at checkout.

For instance, the system can be used to capture beeps produced by a scanner and the rustling of bags at checkout to find out the number of items in a transaction or even the number of bags used.

More alarmingly, the patent mentions that the system could be used to listen to guests' conversations to determine the lengths of checkout lines.

How is this ethically a good thing?


https://www.cnet.com/news/walmart-gains-patent-to-eavesdrop-on-shoppers-and-employees-in-stores/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0b&linkId=54242402
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Offline DeeDee

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Re: Walmart Gains Patent To Eavesdrop On Employees And Customers
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2018, 04:07:04 PM »
Ethically awful. But their property, their rules.
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Offline ThreeStep

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Re: Walmart Gains Patent To Eavesdrop On Employees And Customers
« Reply #2 on: July 14, 2018, 07:22:22 AM »
Not a place I spend a lot of time in or talk much. The local WM made pick-up store of 2017 and is swarming with pickers. They will politely run over you if you do not move fast enough.

Offline Middle Child

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Re: Walmart Gains Patent To Eavesdrop On Employees And Customers
« Reply #3 on: July 14, 2018, 07:49:26 AM »
Not a place I spend a lot of time in or talk much. The local WM made pick-up store of 2017 and is swarming with pickers. They will politely run over you if you do not move fast enough.

What?  Could you please interpret.  funny2

Offline ThreeStep

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Re: Walmart Gains Patent To Eavesdrop On Employees And Customers
« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2018, 07:53:49 AM »
What?  Could you please interpret.  funny2

Pick-up of on-line orders is the thing at WM now. Our local store made top 1 of the country. So called pickers push huge carts through the store and put those orders together. They are under time constraints and will not budge when a two legged in-store customer tries to get something out of a shelf. Explained? The latest and greatest is delivery. Same game, different color of bins. Now Sprouts is going that way as well.

Offline Middle Child

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Re: Walmart Gains Patent To Eavesdrop On Employees And Customers
« Reply #5 on: July 15, 2018, 08:28:30 AM »
Pick-up of on-line orders is the thing at WM now. Our local store made top 1 of the country. So called pickers push huge carts through the store and put those orders together. They are under time constraints and will not budge when a two legged in-store customer tries to get something out of a shelf. Explained? The latest and greatest is delivery. Same game, different color of bins. Now Sprouts is going that way as well.

Oh..I get it now.  We have that at my local grocery store. But the pickers are not obnoxious.  They do their jobs busily and smile at shoppers.  At least, they smile at me, because I usually smile at them.

 I don't know if it's come to walmart yet, I go there so seldom.

Offline DeeDee

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Re: Walmart Gains Patent To Eavesdrop On Employees And Customers
« Reply #6 on: July 15, 2018, 10:57:31 AM »
Kroger does that as well here, except you have to pay for the service after the first time. I'm sorry, but I want to pick out my produce myself, and I'm pretty sure all those pickers just grab.
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