This is literally Ad Buddies in the TV show Maniac.<p>I’d probably do it. They’re open about what data they collect and what they use it for, which is better than many of the websites I use
They have this at my university. Their main model seems to be advertising. Though personal data is required at sign up, it isn't significantly more than what would be on your resume.<p>You need to sign up with your details on a website and need to activate a QR code each time you visit. Show the code at the counter to collect coffee. As you collect your cup of coffee, the barista speaks out an advertisement (yes, really) which is a short description about one of the sponsor companies. There is a limit on number of cups you can take per hour and day. I've never used it but it's immensely popular among students and even professors.<p>There is no option to pay for the coffee and bypass the advertisements/sign up process. Can't wait until all food and drinks everywhere are "free" this way.
<i>To get the free coffee, university students must [...] </i><p>Funny, the definition of "free" seems to have changed.<p>It may be that no money changes hands, but the coffee is certainly not free.
It’s unfortunate that this is what privacy advocates are up against:
"Maybe I should have been more apprehensive, but everyone has your information at this point anyway," she said. "To give out my name and email and what I study does not seem so risky to me."<p>Unfortunately this kinda of apathy doesn’t leave much room for those who don’t want to give up their information. There is no alternate model for companies like Facebook or LinkedIn that allows for possibly paying users to maintain some level of privacy.
College kids have no money, and want to be connected with companies. Companies have money, and want to hire people. It sounds sketchy, but is this really so different than companies hosting tech talks at college, exchanging contact info with participants, and buying pizza for the event?
This isn't that different to me from a lot of college job fairs where you drop your resume at the door or upload it online, except it's open every day.<p>I definitely remember a lot of events like "bring your resume, hear from a panel about exciting careers in X, and eat free pizza!!"
I actually like this.<p>1.) Totally opt-in. Unless this cafe holds a monopoly on the coffee market on this college campus, students can choose to participate.<p>2.) It seems like the students have some control over what data to share. Hopefully it's not a binary all-or-nothing situation, but if there's a chance students can share whatever they want (and receive tiered cafe services in proportion to whatever they share), that seems kinda interesting.<p>I'm more than happy to grant companies access to me. But I want something in return. In this case, maybe a chai latte?
You should assume that Equifax or the like will eventually implement a Chinese style social credit system which Banks, Employers and Landlords etc will use and will be judged legal because "contracts"<p>Your daily habits, used for who knows what purpose over the many decades remaining in your life, are worth a hell of a lot more than a latte.
Normally I'm very against personal data leaks like this, but in this case it looks to be mutually beneficial. Companies recruit the people at the coffee shop (who are all university students/professors), and the people giving away personal information (which you do anyway on your CV) get free coffee and maybe even a career.<p>Of course, that's based on this article. In reality it might be much worse.
>Alex Inoue, Shiru Cafe's general manager, wrote in an email that the cafe does not give out data on specific students. But it does provide general, aggregate data such as student majors and expected graduation years.<p>I don't see how aggregated data would be valuable enough to fund the cafe. You could probably find that aggregated data via the university's own statistics. The article also says they collect phone numbers and email addresses, but this quote says they don't give them out, which seems a bit strange to me. And JP Morgan hired 40% of its hires from the cafe, but it wasn't given their phone numbers or emails? I guess it's possible but it also seems strange.<p>If you think of the cafe like a job recruitment site, such as Linkedin, Indeed, or Triplebyte, then it would be expected that the site would provide some way for employers to contact candidates. Handing out email and phone number might be considered acceptable, or alternatively providing an intermediary messaging service might be better.
<i>To get the free coffee, university students must give away their names, phone numbers, email addresses and majors, or in Brown's lingo, concentrations. Students also provide dates of birth and professional interests</i><p>Well, what if the student comes again for another coffee? What new/different data does/can he give?
Does that mean you get free coffee everyday or a one time deal? If its everyday then it's a decent amount of rewards for what essentially LinkedIn is getting for free.
> "Maybe I should have been more apprehensive, but everyone has your information at this point anyway," she said. "To give out my name and email and what I study does not seem so risky to me."<p>I hear this a lot. As a privacy advocate myself, what is the best response to this?
How is this even validated or profitable? Companies ask me for various information all the time and I usually just make it up or use an old #, old zip code, etc. Once they have the data, then how do they make money?
I think (hope) this is the beginning of a big new trend.<p>Instead of having people and services steal my personal information to show me BS ads, let me sell my own personal data and maybe then you can show some ads for stuff I might actually be interested in.<p>You might argue that advertisers have too much access to our personal data, but I'd argue they don't have enough.
> But if handing over personal data seems invasive, Ferris said the students don't seem to mind. She doesn't think she has seen a single customer refuse to give up the data.<p>I mean, I just wouldn't go to this cafe because of my personal view, so that data point may not show what they want it to show.
Maybe with more traditional businesses charging not in cash, but in data, we can finally establish an equivalency between the two.<p>This can be useful in proving how certain companies (maybe Facebook, Google) can be monopolies in overcharging users in data space due to the lack of competition.
Besides being horrified at a forthcoming world where more businesses do this, I am also surprised there's that much money in in person advertising. If I had free coffee I would spend 10$ a day at least. There 10$ of advertiser value in 2 or 3 30 second spiels?
Sounds like an abuse of the youth naivety. Many people don't care about their future until they graduate and make their fair amount of mistakes and selling their privacy is going to be among the mistakes they'll probably regret later.
Predicted in 2015:<p><a href="http://onthefastrack.com/comics/april-14-2015/" rel="nofollow">http://onthefastrack.com/comics/april-14-2015/</a>
Talk about discrimination against non-students. Like students are some kind of special snowflakes. I'm going to sue them for this breach of my rights.