Is MoviePass Tracking Your Every Move?
Tech Crunch recently wrote an article, which I found via MilesperDay’s tweet, where the MoviePass CEO openly admitted that the app tracks your movements before and after the movie.
We have all been wondering how MoviePass planned on making money with their cheap service. They even recently slashed the price from $9.95 a month to $7.95 a month, with one caveat. I guess this answers some of those questions. MoviePass has been trying to make it’s users the product!
UPDATE: It looks like MoviePass has removed the tracking while the app is not being used feature in their latest iOS update.
Related: My review after a month of using MoviePass.
What is MoviePass Tracking?
Mitch Lowe, MoviePass’ CEO, recently gave a speech titled “Data is the New Oil: How will MoviePass Monetize It?”. Here are some quotes found in the Tech Crunch article that Lowe recently said during the speech:
“We get an enormous amount of information,” Lowe continued. “We watch how you drive from home to the movies. We watch where you go afterwards.”
And here is a follow up quote Tech Crunch got from MoviePass:
We are exploring utilizing location-based marketing as a way to help enhance the overall experience by creating more opportunities for our subscribers to enjoy all the various elements of a good movie night. We will not be selling the data that we gather. Rather, we will use it to better inform how to market potential customer benefits including discounts on transportation, coupons for nearby restaurants, and other similar opportunities.
Not shocking that they are doing this, most apps do these days, but it is surprising that they are so nonchalant about doing it.
Related: MoviePass shuts down users accounts for abuse.
How do you Counteract This?
Now these are me spit balling some ideas on ways to counteract MoviePass tracking your movements. Maybe some of our more tech savvy readers can help out here as well.
You can turn off location services for the MoviePass app before and after watching the movie. Basically toggling it off and on should make the information unavailable to them.
I am not sure if just switching location services over to “while using the app” would do the trick as well. If you go that route make sure the app isn’t working in the background after you are finished with it. You can do this on the iPhone by double clicking the home screen and swiping up on the app’s page. You should do this with all apps regularly and it will improve your battery life.
I don’t have much experience with Android so any tips on that front leave in the comments section and I will add them in. Leave anything else you can think of for the iPhone as well.
Conclusion
In today’s technologically driven world this isn’t all that surprising and that is probably sad in and of itself. I thought they would be tracking our movie preferences etc. to tailor adds and recommendations to the users but I didn’t think it was tracking me after I left the theater.
This is something to think about before signing up for the program or to reconsider if you currently have it. I think I have laid out a few ways to avoid the tracking but that may be annoying to some.
What do you think about tracking users info?
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