No thanks, Safeway

[omahas]

Today I went into the Safeway near Kouryou-chan's spring break daycamp. I needed to grab something for breakfast, and thought I'd use their wifi while I waited for the next bus. I accessed the network and brought up my browser to log on. They had a terms of service which I'd never read, having never used Safeway's wifi before, so I decided to do a quick perusal. After doing so, I chose not to use Safeway's wifi, nor will I again until certain things are changed.

Under "CONSENT TO MONITORING":

SAFEWAY RESERVES THE RIGHT TO, AND YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND CONSENT THAT SAFEWAY MAY (BUT IS IN NO WAY REQUIRED TO) (1) MONITOR YOUR COMMUNICATIONS AND ACTIVITIES VIA THE SERVICE (INCLUDING THE CONTENT AND NUMBER OF YOUR COMMUNICATIONS AND ACTIVITIES) AT ANY AND ALL TIMES WHILE YOU ARE ACCESSING OR USING THE SERVICE, AND (2) DISCLOSE ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM SUCH MONITORING FOR PURPOSES OF ENSURING YOUR COMPLIANCE WITH THIS AGREEMENT, APPLICABLE LAW, COOPERATING WITH LEGAL AUTHORITIES, AND OTHERWISE PROTECTING SAFEWAY'S RIGHTS, PROPERTY AND INTERESTS."

Uh, no, there is no way I'm going to consent to you, Safeway, monitoring the content of my email. And there is no way that I'm going to allow you to disclose this content, or any monitoring you do, to whomever you please, at your whim (which this basically says). My suggestion, Safeway, is that you drop the whole wifi thing until you talk to the big boys in the industry about what a proper terms of service looks like.

Until then, I'll just go back to Starbucks...I hear that their wifi will be free for the first two hours starting around April 20th. Let's see if they can do better.

Comments

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

They're one of the companies that ran to offer their customer database to homeland security after 9/11, and never bothered to notify the customers that their information had been given to the government.

I try hard to avoid shopping there.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

You got a link to this? I hadn't heard this, and I'd like to post it. I'd been drifting back in that direction after getting hold of a cardnumber that points at a nonexistent residence in another state, but if they're quisling out to the Empire, I won't do business with'em for shoelaces or a stick of gum.

As for monitoring, folks? There's a reason I keep my own personal server in a colo I trust implicitly, and set up a secure encrypted tunneling proxy to do my browsing with when I don't trust the uplink... I'm even doing it presently from work, just as a matter of policy.

No, it's not something your Aunt Matilda can do. OTOH, there is something your Aunt Matilda can do that's *even better* (albeit kinda slow in the browsing)... go grab the Torbutton plugin for Firefox. At that point you can give anybody you want to the digitus impudicus about monitoring... it's going out random servers over a secure link, and unless something makes it obvious, even *you* don't know where your end point is. (I remember Googling something on Tor once, and finding myself at google.de... :)

I agree that Safeway should suffer the consequences of their actions. And that we should be vocal about it. BUT. We should also *take control of our own data*, actively and daily. Email too. (Those interested, see me after class.)

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

I'll see if I can find it; it was quite a while ago.

IIRC, at the time several of my friends suggested that the appropriate way to deal with it was for lots of people to set up *several* accounts with fictitious information, and flood the databases with invalid information. Still sounds like a reasonable idea to me.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

There are all *sorts* of ways to monkeywrench things. Card-swapping clubs, bogus data, etc... but being aware and in control is the first step. (And, yes, basically if you've got a situation where there's no clear winner and all the big dogs have card programs? I think the card-swapping thingy is the way to go. OTOH, I prefer voting with my feet and my wallet when one guy is clearly worse than the others...)

Thanks for looking. The more folks we have out there with the time and drive to keep the idiots honest (or at least exposed), the better.)