Spirited News and Observations and Opinions ...

[SirOinksALot]

My point is that it had to come from a person or people somewhere. He doesn't spend his hours digging for info or making it up, it comes to him.

 

[Monty]

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” – U.S. Constitution

“Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operations, to scientific advancement, and the like. The cause of privacy will be won or lost essentially in legislative halls and in constitutional assemblies. If it is won, this pluralistic society of ours will experience a spiritual renewal. If it is lost we will have written our own prescription for mediocrity and conformity.” – Justice William Douglas, Points of Rebellion

"It is not the breaking of a man's doors and the rummaging of his drawers that constitutes the essence of the offense; but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty and private property, where that right has never been forfeited by his conviction of some public offense" - Justice Joseph Bradley

“The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable.” - U. S. Privacy Study Commission, 1977

“This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.” – Ben Franklin

“Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint; the more restraint on others to keep off from us, the more liberty we have.” - Daniel Webster

“The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.” - Alex Carey

“No matter how many times a privileged straight white male technology executive pronounces the death of privacy, Privacy Is Not Dead. People of all ages care deeply about privacy. And they care just as much about privacy online as they do offline.” – Danah Boyd, Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity

“The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.” - Noam Chomsky

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.” - George Orwell, 1984

"Big Brother is Watching You." - George Orwell, 1984

“Be seeing you.” - Patrick McGoohan, The Prisoner

The Mouse will be tracking your every move.

Our beliefs are what make us who we are. Once we begin to accept that we should not fight for our beliefs, that we should passively accept current interpretation of the law, we have conceded that the fate of our democracy rests in the hands of “kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations”.

“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” – Robert Hutchins

For some reason, the words of Peter Clemenza in the Godfather seem appropriate - “You know, you gotta stop them at the beginning. Like they should have stopped Hitler at Munich, they should never let him get away with that, they was just asking for trouble.”

An impressive bit of nothing. The 4th Amendment and all the various privacy laws stop with Government or at your front door. Disney can perfectly legally track your every movement and activity while you are on their property. Which I believe was what @flynnibus said, though I certainly wouldn't want to put words in his mouth...

 

[Lil Fort]

Even if you don't track kids 12 and under at all you know exactly where they went by tracking their parents. Teenagers may be free to roam the parks alone. Most people aren't letting their 8 and 10 year olds out in the parks alone. Typically the first marketing demographic is 18 to 24 since that is the age kids start to have their own money to spend.

You have to look at the whole picture to see where the problem lies. A big part of NextGen is 'selling' it to guests with FP+ as a new perk and more importantly allowing guests being to change their FP times via their mobile devices. The new extension of COPPA to mobile devices will cause a problem here.

Imagine this scenario:
Mom, Dad and Junior are vacationing at WDW. Mom and Dad want to opt out of any collection of Junior's data. They have all of their FP times set up ahead of time, but their plans change and they want to change one or more of their FP times. If they have opted out of tracking Junior's data then they would no longer be able to view or change Junior's FP times via their mobile app because changing this data would be considered collecting information that is available on Junior via a mobile device. That makes the FP+ program a bit more complicated for Disney to implement because they will somehow need to find a suitable workaround for the problem. Even if these guests choose not to use their mobile devices for this purpose, COPPA would still require Disney to program around this scenario because it could happen. I have been giving this some thought and I don't see an easy workaround for this that won't end up making FP+ a bit of a headache for these guests. Maybe someone else does, but I hope not because I'm not a fan of what I have been hearing about how FP+ will work.

 

[Goofyernmost]

If you turn around and sell your competitive edge.. its no longer a competitive edge. That is the #1 reason you wouldn't sell the platform and technology developed.

Second, Disney is not in the IT consulting business. Why on earth would you guys keep suggesting they get into it.. and in turn erase the very competitive edge they are trying to build.. at an investment of over a billion dollars and many years of work.

Granted that we really know very little about this plan, but, what we do know is not even close to being a competitive edge. It's more like studying the movement of people without having to stand there and ask them what rides they rode, what stores they went into, etc.

It is my belief that none of the information gleaned from this thing will ever be shared. It is of no interest to outside business how many Stuffed Mickeys that Disney sells because they do not have the same inventory or theme. It is very handy for Disney but only in terms of specific Disney things. The same as it would be to outside interest based on their specifics. As I said before, it is a tool. So far the only thing that has changed for the public is that they may be able to get some FP's before they leave home. That's pretty much it. How is that going to increase business. They are offering them to people who primarily were already going there to begin with. Once they get there they cannot be forced to buy something extra, but, Disney will get a cross section of what they do, buy and visit the most. That allows Disney to beef things up to help with sales, but it doesn't guarantee it. I don't see any other benefit being given out to the public other then that. And, I feel that the only reason they are offering that is so they can call it a special thing that they are doing for their guests. That is total Bull, in my opinion. It's smoke and mirrors.

They did want a new and improved method of tracking where people are and what they are spending money on, at what time of day and for how long. That helps them easily plan inventory's, drop items or increase them with greater accuracy, possibly even track them based on the geographic location they came from, plan needs for CM's on what rides. Even what rides are the absolute most popular and which ones are duds without having to manually record it by faulty human beings. If it has GPS capability they will know exactly how many are in what line at what time and how fast it is moving. It's all information that would be useful to Disney only and then only if they did something besides look at the numbers and scratch their collective heads saying, "gee, now that we have this information, what do we do now".

Why do you think that Disney wouldn't be interested in being in the IT business? It's the field to be in by all accounts. They need and want a new system, they are spending billions to make it work and just like Disney has done since the beginning are going to find a way to get others to defray the costs. They can sell a system that doesn't begin to give anyone a competitive advantage over themselves. Unless they can get a location in one of the parks, they cannot compete at all because it is just a system, it is not a hard asset, like Harry Potter. It's just a system. It will have almost no impact on those that are going anyway other then the make believe perk of FP's generosity. What else does it offer? What else can it offer. You wouldn't think that Disney would have been in the Baseball Team business either, but they were.

Perhaps when all the real details are released it will become more clear what the intent is and I might change my mind, but as it stands right now, it makes perfect sense that this "system" will be offered to outsiders for a relatively hefty chunk of change as soon as they see what it can do and then they can approach others for their payback. Right now it is impossible to see how this system will help increase business in an already full park setting.

BTW, Disney isn't going to be in the consulting business, they are patenting/copywriting the created system and will get money every time someone duplicates it in any form. They will have a herd of lawyers on this (or is that a gaggle of lawyers) but if the system works, they will more then get their money back because with slight modifications, it can be used by any business, not just theme parks, but, anyone that sells or provides a service to any member of the public.

 

[orky8]

Well I'll simply disagree with you. Just because you may not like the services being offered - doesn't mean they don't exist and aren't things that offer competitive differences.

Competitive differences are not the same as competitive edges. I don't doubt the differences exist from NextGen vs traditional experiences -- I doubt their utility to the bottom line, which is really what matters. This is a huge datamining operation to hopefully allow Disney to engage in targeting advertising. But the irony is (or perhaps sad truth is) that instead of spending $2B to datamine to figure out how to advertise for crumbling and stale product, they should have just stuck to the tried and true method -- build a great product and advertise that. Which do you think is more effective, if TDO somehow magically figured out my favorite thing about WDW (which I'm not even sure if I know what that is), and sent me advertisements with the picture of that item, or if TDA sent everyone the same advertisement with pictures of RSR (with smaller pictures of WOC, Ariel, the Carthay Circle, etc) and said wish you were here? I think Disney is starting to doubt the impact to the bottom line. Moreover, I think Disney is also starting to wise up to the PR and legal nightmare this could be and trying to figure out how to salvage its investment.

Now, here is what they may be able to do -- just an example -- at my recent trip to DCA I bought a mickey shaped cake pop that was flippin amazing. Perhaps, Disney will now track when I enter into DL and send me a pop-up/e-mail saying something like, wasn't that cake pop amazing, we also sell them at the bakery on main street. So, maybe, at best they will extract an additional $4, but the truth is I went back to DCA and bought a second one anyway the next day without that advertisement. Moral of the story, to paraphrase Al Lutz, Disney is spending $2B to pick up pennies while the dollars are flying over their heads. And not really Disney, but TDO, and while some of that money is flying over to other Disney properties, more and more that money is going to be flying over to the properties of other companies.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

And they can legally rifle through your suitcases in your hotel room while you are at the parks. But I think most peole would take umbrage to that if they did.

 

[flynnibus]

An impressive bit of nothing. The 4th Amendment and all the various privacy laws stop with Government or at your front door. Disney can perfectly legally track your every movement and activity while you are on their property. Which I believe was what @flynnibus said, though I certainly wouldn't want to put words in his mouth...

Yup - and my beliefs do not make something law. So he can go on and on about his 'rights' as he believes them to be - it doesn't make them rights under the law.

 

[asianway]

An impressive bit of nothing. The 4th Amendment and all the various privacy laws stop with Government or at your front door. Disney can perfectly legally track your every movement and activity while you are on their property. Which I believe was what @flynnibus said, though I certainly wouldn't want to put words in his mouth...

Because, its not like the Walt Disney World Resort is a government body or anything

 

[SirOinksALot]

And they can legally rifle through your suitcases in your hotel room while you are at the parks. But I think most peole would take umbrage to that if they did.

Only if they have reason to suspect you're engaging in illegal activity.

 

[GoofGoof]

You have to look at the whole picture to see where the problem lies. A big part of NextGen is 'selling' it to guests with FP+ as a new perk and more importantly allowing guests being to change their FP times via their mobile devices. The new extension of COPPA to mobile devices will cause a problem here.

Imagine this scenario:
Mom, Dad and Junior are vacationing at WDW. Mom and Dad want to opt out of any collection of Junior's data. They have all of their FP times set up ahead of time, but their plans change and they want to change one or more of their FP times. If they have opted out of tracking Junior's data then they would no longer be able to view or change Junior's FP times via their mobile app because changing this data would be considered collecting information that is available on Junior via a mobile device. That makes the FP+ program a bit more complicated for Disney to implement because they will somehow need to find a suitable workaround for the problem. Even if these guests choose not to use their mobile devices for this purpose, COPPA would still require Disney to program around this scenario because it could happen. I have been giving this some thought and I don't see an easy workaround for this that won't end up making FP+ a bit of a headache for these guests. Maybe someone else does, but I hope not because I'm not a fan of what I have been hearing about how FP+ will work.

Simple solution to your scenario is to use the in park kiosks to change the reservations instead of the app. They could also just not collect the data on the children. Having and/or changing a FP reservation does not have to include saving or collecting online personal information. A simple example is the kid whose parent would not opt out is referenced as John or Jane Doe with no address, e-mail or other personal info. stored on his wrist band. When mom makes her change to FP+ little Johny Doe is linked to her account anyway and she makes changes on his behalf. We already know it is possible to control multiple members of your party through one account. That feature was shown as part of the testing rolled out.

I hear that you don't like the nextgen system and I agree that it seems like money poorly spent, but I think it's wishful thinking that COPPA will somehow de-rail the whole project, but you never know.

 

[Expo_Seeker40]

Walt Disney World: Where dreams are planned ahead of time.

 

[yoyoflamingo]

Walt Disney World: Where dreams are planned ahead of time.

...except lacking the quality of upkeep and show standards.

 

[Monty]

...except lacking the quality of upkeep and show standards.

I don't think it's referring to the 1984 you think it's referring to...

 

[ParentsOf4]

Because, its not like the Walt Disney World Resort is a government body or anything

Interesting. Quoting from the Reedy Creek Improvement District webpage:

Providing essential government services for the Walt Disney Resort and the cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista.

Exactly who controls the Reedy Creek Improvement District?

 

[jlsHouston]

You are not required to participate at all.You can always opt out and do it the old fashioned way.

I respect you opinions and thoughts on a lot of matters but I really don't see any invasion of privacy ... you are at a theme park...what intrusion on your privacy could possibly be inferred?

Well, I respect both of y'alls insights and opinions and knowledge, but I have to say this nextgen thing is offensive and intrusive. I personally kind of view it like putting a video camera on me in the resort room I just paid for. I do find this nextgen data collection device whether it is in the form of a key or a ticket or GOD forbid an itchy wristband totally beyond acceptable business and marketing practices.

 

[Lil Fort]

Simple solution to your scenario is to use the in park kiosks to change the reservations instead of the app. They could also just not collect the data on the children. Having and/or changing a FP reservation does not have to include saving or collecting online personal information. A simple example is the kid whose parent would not opt out is referenced as John or Jane Doe with no address, e-mail or other personal info. stored on his wrist band. When mom makes her change to FP+ little Johny Doe is linked to her account anyway and she makes changes on his behalf. We already know it is possible to control multiple members of your party through one account. That feature was shown as part of the testing rolled out.

I hear that you don't like the nextgen system and I agree that it seems like money poorly spent, but I think it's wishful thinking that COPPA will somehow de-rail the whole project, but you never know.

Unfortunately referencing Junior as 'little Johnny Doe' doesn't necessarily get them around the problem. Simply the act of linking him to his mother's account is considered personally identifiable information. As far as controlling multiple members of a party through one account, each of those members must be identified, so the information is still being tracked as a separate entity in the database. Really the only option is for Mom, Dad and Junior to be required to use the kiosk, but can you imagine the nightmare for CMs trying to explain why they can't use their app when everyone else can just because they opted out?

 

[SirOinksALot]

Interesting. Quoting from the Reedy Creek Improvement District webpage:

Exactly who controls the Reedy Creek Improvement District?

Are you claiming that the project is a violation of the Constitution because Reedy Creek is a government controlled by Disney? That's an honest question, not some rhetorical snarkiness.

 

[George]

I don't think it's referring to the 1984 you think it's referring to...

Or he/she could be assuming that we all get the literary reference and is using the year to make a dig at the WDW of today.....I'd assume if you didn't get the reference you wouldn't quote it because the post would seem incredibly odd, but people do odd things.

 

[asianway]

Interesting. Quoting from the Reedy Creek Improvement District webpage:

Exactly who controls the Reedy Creek Improvement District?

The board, who is elected by the landowners of Bay Lake & LBV. And becoming a landowner In either city is doled out by TWDC. Much tougher than scoring a media invite. Yes it is an independent body, but as a matter of "control"?

 

[yoyoflamingo]

I don't think it's referring to the 1984 you think it's referring to...

As an English teacher, I am aware of the 1984 being referred to. But, the literal meaning of the year can't be lost either, since in fact in some ways the WDW of 1984 was held to a higher standard that it seems to be today. Seemed to me it could be taken either way.

All the MK is missing is a giant portrait of Phil Holmes watching you to make it even more parallel...or is that the real reason for the addition in Bonjour Village Gifts!