Following up on my other comment, I have received the data from the GDPR request I made. Took 28 days on the dot which makes me think they have an automation that sends the data after that time...
Exemplary
Following up on my other comment, I have received the data from the GDPR request I made.
Took 28 days on the dot which makes me think they have an automation that sends the data after that time has passed, with the 2 days as a buffer to avoid getting into trouble.
I received 26,495 lines of JSON, most likely a sanitized database dump, containing the following:
Account and identity data
Loyalty card and points history
Purchase history
App telemetry
Advertisement and offer exposure
Push notification activity
Marketing segmentation and churn classifications (more on these later)
Inferred preferences and demographic attributes
Device and third-party identifiers
GDPR consent history
Data request logs (so they keep track of when and how you request the data)
Seems to link to a marketing platform named VMob and I am curious what data is shared with them considering they have an identifier.
I've been added to some marketing and experimentation groups:
CRM-Churn - Romania_Churn_TestGroup_80Percent
Sample Group - Exclusive offers 2
Segment - TestControlGroup
Segment - Exclusive Offers B
Inferred Segment - Exclusive Offers D
Inferred Segment - NoN_EE_Users
I'm in the product preference categories 1, 2, 6, 10, 11, and 12. They are unlabeled so I don't know what they individually mean, but I can generally guess what they are based on what I know I ordered from them in the past.
They keep detailed logs of every single ad, push notification and offer that I have ever seen, clicked, or interacted with - assuming this is only in the app, but they don't specify where the ad was ran.
Some offers still have isActive: true despite being expired, which is interesting.
I have sent their DPO a follow-up email asking some clarifying questions about the segments and groups and what tests were ran on my account, alongside more information about their data sharing with VMob; don't expect to get much detail but it's worth a try.
If any of you want more detail, feel free to ask, I skipped over a lot of less interesting stuff.
The JSON object looks like this: { "ActivityType": "PushMessageSeen", "ActivityDetails": [ { "ActivityItemType": "Message", "ItemName": "30 Settembre - inizio piano", "ActivityUtcTime":...
The JSON object looks like this:
{"ActivityType":"PushMessageSeen","ActivityDetails":[{"ActivityItemType":"Message","ItemName":"30 Settembre - inizio piano","ActivityUtcTime":"2023-09-30T08:38:22+00:00"}...]}
So each entry is just the name of the push notification campaign and the date the notification was sent.
They claim them as "seen" but I'm unsure if that just means that the OS displayed the push notification, or if it's marked as seen if I click or swipe it away (I do hope Android does not report back to apps if notifications are swiped away but who knows at this point).
For in-app advertisements and offers, they do separate between an impression, a click, and a sale/redemption.
As a California resident, I have the legal right to access the data a company stores about me. So, I decided to request that information from McDonald’s to better understand what one of the major fast-food companies is collecting about its customers. A few days after I visited the McDonald’s Privacy Rights Center site and requested access, I received a 515-page file in my inbox with the iconic golden arches stamped across the top.
Much of my data report contains a detailed account of past McDonald’s transactions as well as offers the fast-food company sent me and how many loyalty points I accumulated. Essentially, every time I opened up the app to grab a bite to eat, it created a detailed record about when, where, and what I purchased. The log was even more thorough than I anticipated, including a record of every time I’ve scanned a code as part of its returning Monopoly sweepstakes along with the prize I received.
While the sheer amount of data McDonald’s stored over the years caught me off guard at first, the way it was used by the company’s predictive algorithms was what I found most concerning. The company predicted how often I would visit in the next six weeks (2.16 times), what I would spend on average ($13.49), and what I would spend in total ($29.15). One reporter at WIRED joked that McDonald’s had created a Minority Report-style dossier to predict my next snack wrap purchase.
I don't eat at fast food restaurants often enough to be tracked, and I'm certainly not on anyone's loyalty plan, but I'm sure I would be very uncomfortable about the amount of information that...
I don't eat at fast food restaurants often enough to be tracked, and I'm certainly not on anyone's loyalty plan, but I'm sure I would be very uncomfortable about the amount of information that Amazon has on me.
I am very much a privacy enthusiast, but I don't see anything wrong or bad about this data. The export doesn't indicate any sort of data sharing—the profile McDonalds makes is only based on your...
I am very much a privacy enthusiast, but I don't see anything wrong or bad about this data.
The export doesn't indicate any sort of data sharing—the profile McDonalds makes is only based on your purchases at McDonalds, which are totally fine for them to track. The so-called "515-page dossier" is not as scary as it sounds, because it seems to just be a raw dump of CRM data, not some curated 515 page profile of the user. And the most scary exampled of the data they have is "here's your most bought product and a simple statistical analysis of your visits".
Personally, this kind of data doesn’t bother me at all, and is the type of data I don’t mind them having at all, and is the type of analysis I expect them to do. Using the data they have about my direct interactions with them to predict how I interact with them in the future seems fine. As long as they aren’t charging me extra, why should I be upset that they can predict what I will do based on my predictable behavior?
I guess for me it's the idea that large stores of data like that are liabilities that only increase in size and potential "severity" over time. Like, right now it's just McDonald's doing...
I guess for me it's the idea that large stores of data like that are liabilities that only increase in size and potential "severity" over time. Like, right now it's just McDonald's doing McDonald's things with our data, but if there were a breach, or if a data broker or AI company came along with the right price...
For example, Google just bought Spirit Airlines' data to train their AI. Granted, Spirit is defunct and the article claims that it doesn't include passenger information, but it still speaks to the idea that all this data could find itself somewhere else given the right circumstances, even if it currently isn't being used that way right now.
Take a guess as to what happened after the app was introduced and enough data was collected? They could hike prices because they knew the aggregated “pain point” prices that were juuuust still in...
As long as they aren’t charging me extra
Take a guess as to what happened after the app was introduced and enough data was collected?
They could hike prices because they knew the aggregated “pain point” prices that were juuuust still in reach of customers’ wallets without driving them away completely.
Exactly. When people started to talk about McDonalds becoming expensive there were always people saying “you can still get good deals if you use the app.” No, that means that the price is still...
Exactly. When people started to talk about McDonalds becoming expensive there were always people saying “you can still get good deals if you use the app.”
No, that means that the price is still up, you are just subsidizing them with the sale of your personal information, and furthermore you’re getting a terrible deal.
Yeah and sometimes I need a two dollar sandwich to get through my morning. McDonald's having my info is so much lower on my scary list these days, idk, it's just hard to be fussed about it.
Yeah and sometimes I need a two dollar sandwich to get through my morning.
McDonald's having my info is so much lower on my scary list these days, idk, it's just hard to be fussed about it.
You also give up your seventh amendment rights to a court trail if they ever decide to fuck you over in any way, so there is that. Note that there is no language allowing you to terminate the...
You also give up your seventh amendment rights to a court trail if they ever decide to fuck you over in any way, so there is that. Note that there is no language allowing you to terminate the arbitration and class action waiver clauses, so since you've signed up for the app, you can essentially never sue McDonalds in a US court except for small claims.
But hey, I'm speaking as someone who was dumb and downloaded the app and is bound by a version of those terms, so it seems we're both in the same camp.
Arbitration doesn't always work out in their favor and those clauses have been successfully challenged before. Eh. I literally have such bigger issues. Who knows how many TOS I've accepted giving...
Arbitration doesn't always work out in their favor and those clauses have been successfully challenged before.
Eh. I literally have such bigger issues. Who knows how many TOS I've accepted giving that right away.
Arbitration may not always work out in the company's favor, but when a court case doesn't work out in your favor, you can appeal it. If you get fucked over by a bad arbitration you are fucked over...
Arbitration may not always work out in the company's favor, but when a court case doesn't work out in your favor, you can appeal it. If you get fucked over by a bad arbitration you are fucked over forever. As per challenged arbitration clauses, this is why they are constantly changing them. Are you not constantly getting emails saying that corporations are changing their terms of service? These days they are often emailing you with language specifically calling out arbitration because it's that big of a deal.
The fact that you don't know how many arbitration agreements you've signed is probably a sign that it's probably a larger issue than you realize.
This is kind of feeling patronizing, you're explaining things I understand. I am simply being honest that I don't know how many I've signed. I'd doubt anyone does. But I'm not going to pretend...
This is kind of feeling patronizing, you're explaining things I understand. I am simply being honest that I don't know how many I've signed. I'd doubt anyone does. But I'm not going to pretend that much would change by avoiding this one app.
I also, again, am dealing with much larger issues. Like, suicide prevention for teens, particularly trans teens. And pushing back institutions trying to comply in advance, sacrificing trans and gender non-conforming students' safety on the grounds of avoiding federal attention and "the greater good." While literally trying to catch the autistic student who just withdrew impulsively last night. While trying to keep my partner's wound from turning into something life threatening. While trying to get my useless Rep to give a fuck about his constituents so maybe we won't lose home and community based services because we've already lost SNAP because of a form not getting filed properly.
The practicality of things is that my ability to not sue McDonalds is not that big of an issue in the scheme of things. And even if the larger picture of how many arbitration agreements I've signed is indicative of the systemic problems with our society, I'm not fixing it, congress won't fix it before the midterms, if ever, and probably not during this administration. I am not lacking realization, I'm lacking capacity. I'm out of fucks to give.
This is absolutely someone's cause, but it's far too big for me as an individual to solve and personally, individually, it's not that big of a deal.
It's almost as if someone responding to a comment I wrote four weeks ago about my legal rights - something I care about deeply - just to dismiss them, might just make me a little bit upset. I can...
It's almost as if someone responding to a comment I wrote four weeks ago about my legal rights - something I care about deeply - just to dismiss them, might just make me a little bit upset. I can appreciate that you have more important things to deal with but yelling out how much you don't care is just insulting.
I'm sorry you're going through so much right now. My sister also lost her benefits a while back and it took quite a while before she was able to get back on her feet. I hope things work out for you.
As I said "sometimes I just need a $2 sandwich, I have other stuff going on" not "fuck you and your rights" I don't really think I was yelling anything. I care a lot about my rights too, it just...
As I said "sometimes I just need a $2 sandwich, I have other stuff going on" not "fuck you and your rights" I don't really think I was yelling anything. I care a lot about my rights too, it just looks different.
And the comment was new to me in the bumped thread; I didn't even see the date. But I thought huh, something I have a reply to as a frequent app user. And then I did. That's all.
I genuinely thought I was engaging in a rather mild statement in a fairly non-confrontational way and when it felt patronizing I tried to say so directly and then explain my point enough detail to make "bigger issue" clearer. I don't really know why we're here.
I appreciate the kind words? I guess? I am just confused.
Well at first I thought you were being antagonistic, then I read it again and I thought you were being exasperated with the things in your life. And now I’m just confused too.
Well at first I thought you were being antagonistic, then I read it again and I thought you were being exasperated with the things in your life. And now I’m just confused too.
I am exasperated in general, with all those other bigger things, but all I was intending to say was: sometimes I just need a $2 sandwich for breakfast, and in the scheme of things right now it's...
I am exasperated in general, with all those other bigger things, but all I was intending to say was: sometimes I just need a $2 sandwich for breakfast, and in the scheme of things right now it's hard to be fussed about McDonald's app terms.
Not dismissing your rights. Not yelling. Just... What I typed. 乁( •_• )ㄏ
shiiet I was one of those people saying "just use the app". still, every time I pull through the drive thru I constantly see people ordering via the speaker. so the app users are still a minority.
shiiet I was one of those people saying "just use the app". still, every time I pull through the drive thru I constantly see people ordering via the speaker. so the app users are still a minority.
I just don't see the point of ordering via the app instead of at the speaker. With the app I'd have to sit in the parking lot and go through the interface to do the order then drive up to the...
I just don't see the point of ordering via the app instead of at the speaker.
With the app I'd have to sit in the parking lot and go through the interface to do the order then drive up to the speaker anyway and spend maybe a few seconds less telling them my app info than if I just told them what I wanted.
I guess I could order at home before driving to the restaurant but my concern with doing that is always that they might make it as soon as the order comes in so my food sits there getting cold until I arrive.
I suppose I can see the use if you're doing a particularly large order but for individuals I don't get the benefit.
[In my country] The app is explicitly states when things will be made. If you order dine-in or take-out with the app, it gets started (more accurately, put in the queue) the same as if you ordered...
[In my country] The app is explicitly states when things will be made. If you order dine-in or take-out with the app, it gets started (more accurately, put in the queue) the same as if you ordered in person at the counter or kiosk and you have ~1h to pick it up. If you order drive-thru, it doesn't get started at all until reach the drive-thru and tell them your mobile order number.
I always order in the app unless I'm already at the location. I live a few minutes away by car, so for dine in doing it this way means hot food with zero wait. For drive thru, I vastly prefer seeing the complete menu and getting precise orders (with optional customization) in the system over using the crappy intercom with a person.
It's the deals/rewards. You can still order at the speaker but need to attach to the deal/reward first. In theory they can start making your order sooner, especially if you do curbside or in-store...
It's the deals/rewards. You can still order at the speaker but need to attach to the deal/reward first. In theory they can start making your order sooner, especially if you do curbside or in-store pickup instead of drive thru, but ymmv on that actually being faster.
I mean, yeah, they could, but they're just as likely to lower prices for the same reason after suddenly gaining access to that data. The whole point of data like that is to find the optimal price...
They could hike prices because they knew the aggregated “pain point” prices that were juuuust still in reach of customers’ wallets without driving them away completely.
I mean, yeah, they could, but they're just as likely to lower prices for the same reason after suddenly gaining access to that data. The whole point of data like that is to find the optimal price point. Its not the absolute most that a single customer is willing to pay. Its the price that most people are willing to pay that causes you to make the most profit over time.
If you price your big macs at 20 dollars, sure, some people are going to keep buying them, but most people won't, and you'll lose money. If you nudge the price up by only a little bit, you'll make more profit, but people will come less often. Finding the sweet spot where those two lines intersect is the whole point.
I don't understand how that's related to gathering data about individual customers. They're adjusting prices for everyone, not just for specific people. They could've done this by tracking regular...
I don't understand how that's related to gathering data about individual customers. They're adjusting prices for everyone, not just for specific people. They could've done this by tracking regular metrics without having an app and a loyalty programme.
They did, for years! That's what's so crazy to me about all this privacy stuff, I work at an analytics company, we literally make the product that people use to analyze this sort of stuff. You...
They did, for years!
That's what's so crazy to me about all this privacy stuff, I work at an analytics company, we literally make the product that people use to analyze this sort of stuff. You know how people actually use the product we make? They don't. They import their data, set up the feature, make 1 dashboard and then no one ever looks at it. I know this because we find bugs all the time which have been obvious blockers and they get missed for weeks. No one is actually looking at these reports.
They collect all this data. Make all these reports. Then whoever's supposed to look at the reports doesn't and makes a decision based on vibes.
I tend to agree for the most part. It's probably a net positive for society if a restaurant can accuratey predict how much food should be prepared any given day and what amount of ingredients...
I tend to agree for the most part.
It's probably a net positive for society if a restaurant can accuratey predict how much food should be prepared any given day and what amount of ingredients needs to be stocked to accomplish that, etc. Wasting resources is really problematic for our environment.
As long as they're not making an extra buck out of selling this data to others for targeted advertising, it's fine.
AFAIK restaurants everywhere have always been perfectly fine to do this without collecting information about individual customers. They just look at the trends of what they sell.
AFAIK restaurants everywhere have always been perfectly fine to do this without collecting information about individual customers. They just look at the trends of what they sell.
Have they? How effective has this been? In my country we are generally more mindful about consumption and waste than the US (by a lot!). We still keep seeing news articles along the lines of "So...
Have they? How effective has this been?
In my country we are generally more mindful about consumption and waste than the US (by a lot!). We still keep seeing news articles along the lines of "So and so much food was wasted this year". Usually the numbers are strikingly high despite our restaurants, at least most of them, doing their best. And despite the stricter regulation we already have in place (a hunch, no time to double check this now). There's still a lot of room to improve.
Obligatory disclaimer: I don't support artificially intelligent everything machines that generally make the world worse and I'm unsure whether large restaurant chains would be able to use AI responsibly.
Other people have responded to you similarly as I will: it’s aggregate data that is the problem. You can be sure that McDonald’s will either sell this data or have it leaked in a hack. Then one...
Other people have responded to you similarly as I will: it’s aggregate data that is the problem.
You can be sure that McDonald’s will either sell this data or have it leaked in a hack.
Then one day you’ll be denied health insurance because you eat too many burgers.
I'm gonna do a GDPR request to see how the EU branches of McDonalds are doing. From what I see, while the data collected is vast, it seems at the very least focused on selling you more burgers and...
I'm gonna do a GDPR request to see how the EU branches of McDonalds are doing.
From what I see, while the data collected is vast, it seems at the very least focused on selling you more burgers and fries.
Usually when mass data collection happens, I'm more scared of them correllating it and trying to figure out things that don't relate to their business so they can sell it to advertisers or third-parties. They still could do that and simply not share it, though.
EDIT: Since I live in a seventh-world country (Romania), I have to email them and wait for a person to reply. I expect for that to not happen.
You don't live in "seventh-world" country - you are EU citizen, you are at the top when it comes to stuff like this. They'll give you the data, GDPR fines are insane.
You don't live in "seventh-world" country - you are EU citizen, you are at the top when it comes to stuff like this. They'll give you the data, GDPR fines are insane.
The seventh world joke was because McDonalds has an online portal for most of its markets in the EU - but Romania isn't included there, and McDonalds Romania says in their Privacy Policy to send...
The seventh world joke was because McDonalds has an online portal for most of its markets in the EU - but Romania isn't included there, and McDonalds Romania says in their Privacy Policy to send an email to gdpr@ro.mcd.com.
Not all EU countries are treated equally by corporations unfortunately, but yeah, they should still abide by GDPR rules.
They still need to provide you the data in the same time period as any other EU citizen. If they don't, I strongly recommend you report them. The EU does not fuck around when it comes to GDPR. If...
They still need to provide you the data in the same time period as any other EU citizen. If they don't, I strongly recommend you report them. The EU does not fuck around when it comes to GDPR. If you don't get the data within 30 days, fill this:
Yeah, I know the process and plan on following it through if McDs doesn't respond. The Romanian branch is somewhat mismanaged and there's a non-zero chance of them fucking it up, so let's see what...
Yeah, I know the process and plan on following it through if McDs doesn't respond. The Romanian branch is somewhat mismanaged and there's a non-zero chance of them fucking it up, so let's see what happens.
Semi-related, I was looking online to see how GDPR enforcement has went since it went into effect, and apparently none of the larger fines have been collected yet, with all of them still in appeals or annulled entirely. I'm curious in 4-5 years how things lay out.
Turns out they probably have an automation that sends the data after exactly 28 days, which is interesting. I received a large JSON file and will parse it soon to see what McDonalds in the EU does.
Turns out they probably have an automation that sends the data after exactly 28 days, which is interesting.
I received a large JSON file and will parse it soon to see what McDonalds in the EU does.
A lot of people don't seem to understand the significance of these practices even pointed out like this, and this is only a narrow profile of one customer at one company. And since they don't, it...
A lot of people don't seem to understand the significance of these practices even pointed out like this, and this is only a narrow profile of one customer at one company. And since they don't, it is easy collect data like this.
It seems that anything harmful at second or higher order effects or simply badly shoved out of view is simply ignored by the common person. The issue is the aggregate effects, how it further imbalances the relationship and how it shapes society.
I planned to add more of an explanation but I am tired.
It’s trained impotence, I watched it happen to my parents in real time. They went from independent free thinkers who understood MS-DOS to iPad kids. Our relationship to technology is a...
It’s trained impotence, I watched it happen to my parents in real time. They went from independent free thinkers who understood MS-DOS to iPad kids. Our relationship to technology is a relationship to capital because we no longer have a say in our OS, websites, cars, privacy etc.
We still can have a say, but it is getting harder. And a lot of it is due to not exercising that say. Effectively there is a choice between temporary fake convenience and between taking the time...
We still can have a say, but it is getting harder. And a lot of it is due to not exercising that say.
Effectively there is a choice between temporary fake convenience and between taking the time to learn and making some compromises in order to have better choices.
Heres a fun personal fact about me, I actually stopped eating at McDonald’s before I became a health nut entirely because of their appification and invasive data harvesting practices. They are...
Heres a fun personal fact about me, I actually stopped eating at McDonald’s before I became a health nut entirely because of their appification and invasive data harvesting practices. They are very much not operating for the public good.
I eat at McDonald's probably a few times a year, but they don't know anything about me besides maybe my credit card number that I've paid with a few times. Hopefully they don't store that though....
I eat at McDonald's probably a few times a year, but they don't know anything about me besides maybe my credit card number that I've paid with a few times. Hopefully they don't store that though.
You don't have to give up your personal information or download an app to get a Big Mac though. I just don't buy things from places that make me use their stupid app even though I'm there in person.
Following up on my other comment, I have received the data from the GDPR request I made.
Took 28 days on the dot which makes me think they have an automation that sends the data after that time has passed, with the 2 days as a buffer to avoid getting into trouble.
I received 26,495 lines of JSON, most likely a sanitized database dump, containing the following:
Here's the notable findings:
"ThirdPartyIdentifiers": [ { "SystemType": "VMobExtID", "Identifier": "EXT-9mmtle" } ]isActive: truedespite being expired, which is interesting.I have sent their DPO a follow-up email asking some clarifying questions about the segments and groups and what tests were ran on my account, alongside more information about their data sharing with VMob; don't expect to get much detail but it's worth a try.
If any of you want more detail, feel free to ask, I skipped over a lot of less interesting stuff.
What's in the push notification information? Are they able to see how/if you interacted with them?
The JSON object looks like this:
So each entry is just the name of the push notification campaign and the date the notification was sent.
They claim them as "seen" but I'm unsure if that just means that the OS displayed the push notification, or if it's marked as seen if I click or swipe it away (I do hope Android does not report back to apps if notifications are swiped away but who knows at this point).
For in-app advertisements and offers, they do separate between an impression, a click, and a sale/redemption.
I don't eat at fast food restaurants often enough to be tracked, and I'm certainly not on anyone's loyalty plan, but I'm sure I would be very uncomfortable about the amount of information that Amazon has on me.
My smoothie place would probably have a nice dossier on me if they had a nice McDonald’s budget
I am very much a privacy enthusiast, but I don't see anything wrong or bad about this data.
The export doesn't indicate any sort of data sharing—the profile McDonalds makes is only based on your purchases at McDonalds, which are totally fine for them to track. The so-called "515-page dossier" is not as scary as it sounds, because it seems to just be a raw dump of CRM data, not some curated 515 page profile of the user. And the most scary exampled of the data they have is "here's your most bought product and a simple statistical analysis of your visits".
One comment from the HN discussion on this:
I guess for me it's the idea that large stores of data like that are liabilities that only increase in size and potential "severity" over time. Like, right now it's just McDonald's doing McDonald's things with our data, but if there were a breach, or if a data broker or AI company came along with the right price...
For example, Google just bought Spirit Airlines' data to train their AI. Granted, Spirit is defunct and the article claims that it doesn't include passenger information, but it still speaks to the idea that all this data could find itself somewhere else given the right circumstances, even if it currently isn't being used that way right now.
Take a guess as to what happened after the app was introduced and enough data was collected?
They could hike prices because they knew the aggregated “pain point” prices that were juuuust still in reach of customers’ wallets without driving them away completely.
Exactly. When people started to talk about McDonalds becoming expensive there were always people saying “you can still get good deals if you use the app.”
No, that means that the price is still up, you are just subsidizing them with the sale of your personal information, and furthermore you’re getting a terrible deal.
Yeah and sometimes I need a two dollar sandwich to get through my morning.
McDonald's having my info is so much lower on my scary list these days, idk, it's just hard to be fussed about it.
You also give up your seventh amendment rights to a court trail if they ever decide to fuck you over in any way, so there is that. Note that there is no language allowing you to terminate the arbitration and class action waiver clauses, so since you've signed up for the app, you can essentially never sue McDonalds in a US court except for small claims.
But hey, I'm speaking as someone who was dumb and downloaded the app and is bound by a version of those terms, so it seems we're both in the same camp.
Arbitration doesn't always work out in their favor and those clauses have been successfully challenged before.
Eh. I literally have such bigger issues. Who knows how many TOS I've accepted giving that right away.
Arbitration may not always work out in the company's favor, but when a court case doesn't work out in your favor, you can appeal it. If you get fucked over by a bad arbitration you are fucked over forever. As per challenged arbitration clauses, this is why they are constantly changing them. Are you not constantly getting emails saying that corporations are changing their terms of service? These days they are often emailing you with language specifically calling out arbitration because it's that big of a deal.
The fact that you don't know how many arbitration agreements you've signed is probably a sign that it's probably a larger issue than you realize.
This is kind of feeling patronizing, you're explaining things I understand. I am simply being honest that I don't know how many I've signed. I'd doubt anyone does. But I'm not going to pretend that much would change by avoiding this one app.
I also, again, am dealing with much larger issues. Like, suicide prevention for teens, particularly trans teens. And pushing back institutions trying to comply in advance, sacrificing trans and gender non-conforming students' safety on the grounds of avoiding federal attention and "the greater good." While literally trying to catch the autistic student who just withdrew impulsively last night. While trying to keep my partner's wound from turning into something life threatening. While trying to get my useless Rep to give a fuck about his constituents so maybe we won't lose home and community based services because we've already lost SNAP because of a form not getting filed properly.
The practicality of things is that my ability to not sue McDonalds is not that big of an issue in the scheme of things. And even if the larger picture of how many arbitration agreements I've signed is indicative of the systemic problems with our society, I'm not fixing it, congress won't fix it before the midterms, if ever, and probably not during this administration. I am not lacking realization, I'm lacking capacity. I'm out of fucks to give.
This is absolutely someone's cause, but it's far too big for me as an individual to solve and personally, individually, it's not that big of a deal.
It's almost as if someone responding to a comment I wrote four weeks ago about my legal rights - something I care about deeply - just to dismiss them, might just make me a little bit upset. I can appreciate that you have more important things to deal with but yelling out how much you don't care is just insulting.
I'm sorry you're going through so much right now. My sister also lost her benefits a while back and it took quite a while before she was able to get back on her feet. I hope things work out for you.
As I said "sometimes I just need a $2 sandwich, I have other stuff going on" not "fuck you and your rights" I don't really think I was yelling anything. I care a lot about my rights too, it just looks different.
And the comment was new to me in the bumped thread; I didn't even see the date. But I thought huh, something I have a reply to as a frequent app user. And then I did. That's all.
I genuinely thought I was engaging in a rather mild statement in a fairly non-confrontational way and when it felt patronizing I tried to say so directly and then explain my point enough detail to make "bigger issue" clearer. I don't really know why we're here.
I appreciate the kind words? I guess? I am just confused.
Well at first I thought you were being antagonistic, then I read it again and I thought you were being exasperated with the things in your life. And now I’m just confused too.
I am exasperated in general, with all those other bigger things, but all I was intending to say was: sometimes I just need a $2 sandwich for breakfast, and in the scheme of things right now it's hard to be fussed about McDonald's app terms.
Not dismissing your rights. Not yelling. Just... What I typed. 乁( •_• )ㄏ
shiiet I was one of those people saying "just use the app". still, every time I pull through the drive thru I constantly see people ordering via the speaker. so the app users are still a minority.
I just don't see the point of ordering via the app instead of at the speaker.
With the app I'd have to sit in the parking lot and go through the interface to do the order then drive up to the speaker anyway and spend maybe a few seconds less telling them my app info than if I just told them what I wanted.
I guess I could order at home before driving to the restaurant but my concern with doing that is always that they might make it as soon as the order comes in so my food sits there getting cold until I arrive.
I suppose I can see the use if you're doing a particularly large order but for individuals I don't get the benefit.
[In my country] The app is explicitly states when things will be made. If you order dine-in or take-out with the app, it gets started (more accurately, put in the queue) the same as if you ordered in person at the counter or kiosk and you have ~1h to pick it up. If you order drive-thru, it doesn't get started at all until reach the drive-thru and tell them your mobile order number.
I always order in the app unless I'm already at the location. I live a few minutes away by car, so for dine in doing it this way means hot food with zero wait. For drive thru, I vastly prefer seeing the complete menu and getting precise orders (with optional customization) in the system over using the crappy intercom with a person.
It's the deals/rewards. You can still order at the speaker but need to attach to the deal/reward first. In theory they can start making your order sooner, especially if you do curbside or in-store pickup instead of drive thru, but ymmv on that actually being faster.
I mean, yeah, they could, but they're just as likely to lower prices for the same reason after suddenly gaining access to that data. The whole point of data like that is to find the optimal price point. Its not the absolute most that a single customer is willing to pay. Its the price that most people are willing to pay that causes you to make the most profit over time.
If you price your big macs at 20 dollars, sure, some people are going to keep buying them, but most people won't, and you'll lose money. If you nudge the price up by only a little bit, you'll make more profit, but people will come less often. Finding the sweet spot where those two lines intersect is the whole point.
I don't understand how that's related to gathering data about individual customers. They're adjusting prices for everyone, not just for specific people. They could've done this by tracking regular metrics without having an app and a loyalty programme.
They did, for years!
That's what's so crazy to me about all this privacy stuff, I work at an analytics company, we literally make the product that people use to analyze this sort of stuff. You know how people actually use the product we make? They don't. They import their data, set up the feature, make 1 dashboard and then no one ever looks at it. I know this because we find bugs all the time which have been obvious blockers and they get missed for weeks. No one is actually looking at these reports.
They collect all this data. Make all these reports. Then whoever's supposed to look at the reports doesn't and makes a decision based on vibes.
Except now the AI makes their decision for them.
I tend to agree for the most part.
It's probably a net positive for society if a restaurant can accuratey predict how much food should be prepared any given day and what amount of ingredients needs to be stocked to accomplish that, etc. Wasting resources is really problematic for our environment.
As long as they're not making an extra buck out of selling this data to others for targeted advertising, it's fine.
AFAIK restaurants everywhere have always been perfectly fine to do this without collecting information about individual customers. They just look at the trends of what they sell.
Have they? How effective has this been?
In my country we are generally more mindful about consumption and waste than the US (by a lot!). We still keep seeing news articles along the lines of "So and so much food was wasted this year". Usually the numbers are strikingly high despite our restaurants, at least most of them, doing their best. And despite the stricter regulation we already have in place (a hunch, no time to double check this now). There's still a lot of room to improve.
Obligatory disclaimer: I don't support artificially intelligent everything machines that generally make the world worse and I'm unsure whether large restaurant chains would be able to use AI responsibly.
Other people have responded to you similarly as I will: it’s aggregate data that is the problem.
You can be sure that McDonald’s will either sell this data or have it leaked in a hack.
Then one day you’ll be denied health insurance because you eat too many burgers.
Maybe the problem is not McDonalds but American health insurance laws then.
I don’t see why we can’t blame all parties involved.
I'm gonna do a GDPR request to see how the EU branches of McDonalds are doing.
From what I see, while the data collected is vast, it seems at the very least focused on selling you more burgers and fries.
Usually when mass data collection happens, I'm more scared of them correllating it and trying to figure out things that don't relate to their business so they can sell it to advertisers or third-parties. They still could do that and simply not share it, though.
EDIT: Since I live in a seventh-world country (Romania), I have to email them and wait for a person to reply. I expect for that to not happen.
You don't live in "seventh-world" country - you are EU citizen, you are at the top when it comes to stuff like this. They'll give you the data, GDPR fines are insane.
The seventh world joke was because McDonalds has an online portal for most of its markets in the EU - but Romania isn't included there, and McDonalds Romania says in their Privacy Policy to send an email to gdpr@ro.mcd.com.
Not all EU countries are treated equally by corporations unfortunately, but yeah, they should still abide by GDPR rules.
They still need to provide you the data in the same time period as any other EU citizen. If they don't, I strongly recommend you report them. The EU does not fuck around when it comes to GDPR. If you don't get the data within 30 days, fill this:
https://www.dataprotection.ro/servlet/ViewDocument?id=1548
Nothing would make me happier if I provided the link that ended up fucking over mcdonalds.
Yeah, I know the process and plan on following it through if McDs doesn't respond. The Romanian branch is somewhat mismanaged and there's a non-zero chance of them fucking it up, so let's see what happens.
Semi-related, I was looking online to see how GDPR enforcement has went since it went into effect, and apparently none of the larger fines have been collected yet, with all of them still in appeals or annulled entirely. I'm curious in 4-5 years how things lay out.
Lucky for you, they have to fulfill that request within about 30 days. :-)
Turns out they probably have an automation that sends the data after exactly 28 days, which is interesting.
I received a large JSON file and will parse it soon to see what McDonalds in the EU does.
A lot of people don't seem to understand the significance of these practices even pointed out like this, and this is only a narrow profile of one customer at one company. And since they don't, it is easy collect data like this.
It seems that anything harmful at second or higher order effects or simply badly shoved out of view is simply ignored by the common person. The issue is the aggregate effects, how it further imbalances the relationship and how it shapes society.
I planned to add more of an explanation but I am tired.
It’s trained impotence, I watched it happen to my parents in real time. They went from independent free thinkers who understood MS-DOS to iPad kids. Our relationship to technology is a relationship to capital because we no longer have a say in our OS, websites, cars, privacy etc.
We still can have a say, but it is getting harder. And a lot of it is due to not exercising that say.
Effectively there is a choice between temporary fake convenience and between taking the time to learn and making some compromises in order to have better choices.
Heres a fun personal fact about me, I actually stopped eating at McDonald’s before I became a health nut entirely because of their appification and invasive data harvesting practices. They are very much not operating for the public good.
I eat at McDonald's probably a few times a year, but they don't know anything about me besides maybe my credit card number that I've paid with a few times. Hopefully they don't store that though.
You don't have to give up your personal information or download an app to get a Big Mac though. I just don't buy things from places that make me use their stupid app even though I'm there in person.