BID0 wrote:In both scenarios Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo/Steam/etc know you have bought a game. They will track what you do with your game.
In the physical scenario Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo/Steam/etc know you
posses a game, not that you bought it or for how much (which they do know in the digital scenario). In the digital scenario, that knowledge also extends to your bank (or whatever you used to make the purchase).
BID0 wrote:On top of that by purchasing a physical copy from a physical store then your face/vehicle registration plates will be stored across a number of CCTV systems from the point of leaving your home, to visiting a cash machine, to sitting on a bus/parking your car, walking through a town centre and inside the store.
1) AFAIK, and as I previously stated, the large majority of CCTV is not used for the mass tracking of individuals, but only for live security monitoring and as a reference for the investigation of specific instances of crime. It is dissimilar to browsing the web, where trackers are very much near constantly in use recording and analysing your individual journeying around the web - and I'm sure such tracking is done within the gaming digital storefronts too. That isn't to say CCTV isn't a concern - it is! But to suggest that CCTV makes physical purchasing less private than online is not a reasonable claim to make.
2) I don't have a car
BID0 wrote:If you have a smart phone on you then your entire journey will be recorded by the device manufacturer as well as any apps you happen to open during your day or have running in the background. If the store runs a loyalty scheme then they will track which stores you visit, what you buy, if you have used their website then they will know which pages you have viewed and if you leave things in your shopping basket.
These are all avoidable (the last point being moot, we're talking about physical purchases from brick-and-mortar stores). I don't use loyalty cards and my phone will not have wifi, data, bluetooth or location turned on in most situations. Regardless, for the purpose of advertising, that data is somewhat less valuable and certainly much harder to tie together to give overall insight into my activity (my journey is doubtful to be in isolation for a single purpose and is more difficult to collate). Again though, as with CCTV, you're not wrong to say that this kind of tracking is certainly concerning!
Moggy wrote:What possible difference does it make if the bank sees £50 going to Game or £50 coming out in cash?
The vast majority of data collection is driven by advertisers looking to profile you so that they can better target you with relevant ads in hope of selling to you more. Knowing that you withdrew £50 cash compared to knowing that you spent £50 on x product at y time in z shop is so
obviously very different I don't know why you're even arguing otherwise!