{"id":180224,"date":"2017-06-19T21:31:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T02:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/06\/19\/amazon-looked-at-how-loathed-comcast-is-and-thought-here-hold-my-beer\/"},"modified":"2017-06-19T21:31:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T02:31:00","slug":"amazon-looked-at-how-loathed-comcast-is-and-thought-here-hold-my-beer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/06\/19\/amazon-looked-at-how-loathed-comcast-is-and-thought-here-hold-my-beer\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Looked at How Loathed Comcast Is, and Thought, &#8220;Here, Hold My Beer.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 310px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/DMcM2V6.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" bordercolor=\"white\" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/DMcM2V6.gif\" width=\"300\" \/><\/a><br \/><i>No Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Die<\/i><\/div>\n<p>Amazon just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/innovations\/wp\/2017\/06\/16\/amazon-has-a-patent-to-keep-you-from-comparison-shopping-while-youre-in-its-stores\/\">took out a patent to block you from comparison shopping on your smart phone while you are in their store<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">As grocery shoppers work to digest Amazon\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/business\/wp\/2017\/06\/16\/amazon-to-buy-whole-foods-market-in-deal-valued-at-13-7-billion\/?pushid=5943d8c4658e691d00000056&amp;tid=notifi_push_breaking-news&amp;utm_term=.ca4ee40447fc\">massive acquisition of Whole Foods<\/a> for $13.7 billion, the digital storefront recently scored a victory that aims to reinforce the company\u2019s growing investments in brick-and-mortar retail. <\/p>\n<p>Amazon was awarded a patent May 30 that could help it choke off a common issue faced by many physical stores: Customers\u2019 use of smartphones to compare prices even as they walk around a shop. The phenomenon, often known as mobile \u201cwindow shopping,\u201d has contributed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/04\/07\/business\/economy\/jobs-report-retail-employment.html?mcubz=1&amp;_r=0\">a worrisome decline<\/a> for traditional retailers. <\/p>\n<p>But Amazon now has the technology to prevent that type of behavior when customers enter any of its physical stores and log onto the WiFi networks there. Titled \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/tu9srvbirvvtmtukd3d3lnbhddjwzgyub3jn.g00.pcmag.com\/g00\/2_d3d3LnBjbWFnLmNvbQ%3D%3D_\/TU9SRVBIRVVTMTUkaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGF0MnBkZi5vcmcvcGF0ZW50cy9wYXQ5NjY1ODgxLnBkZg%3D%3D_$\/$\/$\">Physical Store Online Shopping Control<\/a>,\u201d Amazon\u2019s patent describes a system that can identify a customer\u2019s Internet traffic and sense when the smartphone user is trying to access a competitor\u2019s website. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos is also the owner of The Washington Post.) <\/p>\n<p>When that happens, Amazon may take one of several actions. It may block access to the competitor\u2019s site, preventing customers from viewing comparable products from rivals. It might redirect the customer to Amazon\u2019s own site or to other, Amazon-approved sites. It might notify an Amazon salesperson to approach the customer. Or it might send the customer\u2019s smartphone a text message, coupon or other information designed to lure the person back into Amazon\u2019s orbit.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is the sort of sh%$ that makes Richard Bruce Cheney look like Pope Francis in comparison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Die Amazon just took out a patent to block you from comparison shopping on your smart phone while you are in their store: As grocery shoppers work to digest Amazon\u2019s massive acquisition of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, the digital storefront recently scored a victory that aims to &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[365,364,367],"class_list":["post-180224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-business","tag-evil","tag-internet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}