“At locations where a retailer validates parking for their customers,” including the Hollywood Trader Joe’s, “no convenience fee is charged,” the spokesperson said.Īs for the privacy issues, the spokesperson said the company “collects essential information to facilitate a seamless parking experience.” The spokesperson was decidedly reticent in explaining what I found in the company’s terms of service and privacy policy.įor example, the spokesperson at first didn’t specify the amount of Metropolis’ “convenience fee.” Only when I pressed did the spokesperson acknowledge that the “typical” fee runs about a dollar. Even then, I was told the emailed answers to my questions could be attributed only to an unnamed “Metropolis spokesperson.” It took multiple calls and emails over nearly a week for me to get responses from Metropolis.
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“These advertising partners may use this information (and similar information collected from other websites) for purposes of delivering targeted advertisements to you when you visit third-party websites within their networks.”įor a parking app, these are an awful lot of liberties to take with people’s info. “Through our services, we may allow third-party advertising partners to set technologies and other tracking tools to collect information regarding your activities and your device,” the privacy policy says. This is OK despite laws against deceptive marketing. Kellogg’s Special K Fruit & Yogurt cereal features berries on the box yet contains no berries.
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It’s hard not to suspect that streamlined parking validation is just the bait on the hook for Metropolis to peer deep into your digital life and leverage that data for other purposes.Ĭolumn: The cereal box shows berries. The practice “can principally reveal a complete picture of a person and, thus, become more privacy-invasive” than monitoring online behavior on a single device, the researchers concluded. “To do this our technology partners may share data, such as your browsing patterns, geo-location and device identifiers, and will match the information of the browser and devices that appear to be used by the same person.”Ī 2017 study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Columbia University found that cross-device tracking is used “in most cases for purposes of advertising.” “For example, we may attempt to match your browsing activity on your mobile device with your browsing activity on your laptop. “Your browsing activity may be tracked across different websites and different devices or apps,” the policy says. Metropolis reveals deep in its privacy policy that the company engages in “cross-device tracking.” That’s exactly what it sounds like - it’s going to watch what you do online regardless of which device you use. As 3G networks are shut down, older phones will become obsolete. The rollout of super-fast 5G mobile networks will be completed next year. It reserves the right to monitor “pages that you visit before, during and after” using the company’s online parking validation, as well as “information about the links you click” and “information about the services you use.”Ĭolumn: As 5G wireless arrives, older phones are about to become roadkill Metropolis says it may also collect your internet protocol address, which identifies your specific device on information networks, as well as your wireless service provider, browser, operating system and type of phone.
#J.o.e my name is joe thomas license#
Registering for the Metropolis app means submitting your name, cellphone number, email address, license plate number and credit card information, as well as the make, model and year of your vehicle. Metropolis’ more than 4,000-word privacy policy is a minefield of digital pitfalls, revealing parking to be almost an afterthought for a service that’s aggressively focused on learning who you are and how you behave. The company’s terms of service don’t specify how much this fee will run, stating only that the cost is “calculated as a small percentage of the total visit charge.”īut that’s the least of your worries. You may also be charged a “convenience fee” for your re-engineered legacy parking experience.
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“No more tickets, pay machines or gates: At Metropolis, just drive in and drive out.”įirst of all, if you use the Metropolis app, you may not be paying just for parking. “Metropolis re-engineered the legacy parking experience from the ground-up,” the company’s website declares. The company was launched in 2017 and says it now has more than 150 employees. It’s the brainchild of Venice-based Metropolis Technologies. The controversy over Trader Joe’s ethnic-sounding brands shows how today’s increasingly polarized society puts the whimsical grocery chain in a tough spot. If you’re in love with Trader Joe’s, its stances can also break your heart