[bobberly]

So I finally did my second app store purchase in my life today, and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I've been using BB since the Pearl days. I have 4 Q10s on my plan for family, and who know how many others using BBM. Unfortunately, we've all been complaining to each other about how the notifications icon frequently shows the red mark for something new when there isn't anything there (by nothing there I mean no legitimate notifications, just sponsored invites).

This subscription is nothing more than a software patch to make "new" alerts actually do their intended purpose. Why they ever decided to make BBM act like this on BB hardware just baffles me. Most flawed ad implementation process ever. Now I just have to go buy 3 more subscriptions to fix my other phones this morning. I wonder what the chances are for bulk/gift subscriptions.

Am I overreacting or is this just what it's become now? You can't just show banner ads anymore they have to be forced fed to you inline and masquerading as content?

[Raestloz]

Have you ever actually been annoyed by the ads? I personally have only seen an ad once every 2-3 days on my feed, an an invite about once a month. The paltry amount of ads really makes me wonder how effective they are and who would want to pay to get rid of them

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[Tornado99]

If the ads ultimately fail to generate money for the advertisers, they should just stop on their own.
I do not think most users will pay to eliminate ads...if we all paid that fee, then BlackBerry revenue from the advertisers would be gone entirely, and the elimination fee is one time payment, so....

This Passport takes me places!

[vladi]

I have yet to see an ad. I know my friend got contact request from some stupid app or something but I only get spammed by stupid stickers.

Just for the trivia, do you think they sold more than thousand sticker packs in total?

[MobileZen]

This is a monetization of BBM feature that goes beyond just on BlackBerry devices. The potential ad revenue with cross platform BBM will find more ways for BlackBerry and it's content owners/partners/clients to connect and communicate with BBM users.

Many consumers are used to ads so fortunately this won't be as intrusive. Unfortunately, BlackBerry needs to make money and since market share is low, they should take advantage of this if others are doing this anyways.

For enterprise, I'm sure they will have the no ad feature unless an organization wants to use it for internal marketing.

Either way, BlackBerry needs to make money so not doing this is not an option IMHO.

Posted via CB10

[Tatwi]

As a multi BlackBerry device purchaser and long time BlackBerry user, I resent the ads being sent to me in BBM, the program which is central to my staying with BlackBerry all these years. However, given how infrequently I have actually noticed said ads, I would be even more disturbed if I had spent some of my ad budget on BBM. The ads are too easy to miss entirely and the user base is small. Depending on the product, print ads would be a more effective use of one's money.

The day BlackBerry starts putting ads in the chat log or before accessing a chat is simultaneously the day that ads on the platform become worthwhile and the day I stop using BlackBerry products. I use a BlackBerry rather than an Android these days for two reasons :

1. I don't buy into the bull**** "all your data r belong to us" of Google and their "profiling everyone so we can squeeze every penny from them we can and not give a **** if our data on them gets leaked/sold" cronies.

2. I don't buy into the "let me waste your time and limited data to show ads" paradigm.

With BlackBerry 10 I can turn off location services and native apps still work when denied access to contacts, imei, etc. On Android or with Android apps on BlackBerry 10, that's not possible. Remove those privacy option from BlackBerry 10 and I may as well go buy an HTC with better specs and build quality than a BlackBerry...

So, I hope BlackBerry treads lightly in this regard and does not over do ads on BlackBerry devices.

Posted via CB10

[moosbb]

I have yet to see an ad. I know my friend got contact request from some stupid app or something but I only get spammed by stupid stickers.

Just for the trivia, do you think they sold more than thousand sticker packs in total?

I saw once recently a promoted app on my feeds, but holding the feed and you got the option to simply block the sender

Posted via CB10

[MmmHmm]

If the ads ultimately fail to generate money for the advertisers, they should just stop on their own.
I do not think most users will pay to eliminate ads...if we all paid that fee, then BlackBerry revenue from the advertisers would be gone entirely, and the elimination fee is one time payment, so....

This Passport takes me places!

The ad elimination fee is a 99 cent monthly subscription.

[Raestloz]

If the ads ultimately fail to generate money for the advertisers, they should just stop on their own.
I do not think most users will pay to eliminate ads...if we all paid that fee, then BlackBerry revenue from the advertisers would be gone entirely, and the elimination fee is one time payment, so....

This Passport takes me places!

The ads would be one of those "pay per view", if I guess correctly, and I'd assume that each user would generate much less than $0.99 each month. The no ads is a subscription.

The custom PIN would be interesting for businesses in Indonesia that still use BBM to communicate, it'd be much easier to remember GOODDEAL instead of, say 2A46JD9L or something

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[Witmen]

I use a BlackBerry rather than an Android these days for two reasons :

1. I don't buy into the bull**** "all your data r belong to us" of Google and their "profiling everyone so we can squeeze every penny from them we can and not give a **** if our data on them gets leaked/sold" cronies.

2. I don't buy into the "let me waste your time and limited data to show ads" paradigm.

With BlackBerry 10 I can turn off location services and native apps still work when denied access to contacts, imei, etc. On Android or with Android apps on BlackBerry 10, that's not possible. Remove those privacy option from BlackBerry 10 and I may as well go buy an HTC with better specs and build quality than a BlackBerry...

So, I hope BlackBerry treads lightly in this regard and does not over do ads on BlackBerry devices.

Posted via CB10

It sounds like you should switch to Android.

On point 1, Goolge allows you to disable the collection of data. They also allow you to view and then erase the data that they have collected about you. BlackBerry collects a ton of personal data from their users as well. This data includes things like your real-time location, the contents of your personal messages, and your contacts among several other things. You CANNOT use BlackBerry services without giving them your permission to collect and then share that data. Also, there is no way to view or delete any of the information they have collected about you.

Seems that Google has BlackBerry beat here. I'd love to delete all of the info BlackBerry has on me, but that isn't possible.

On point 2, you're simply mistaken. My current Android phone, the OnePlus One, came with the ability to block any permission I want. I block all of the things you mentioned (along with a few others) for all apps and I've yet to encounter any app that doesn't work because of blocked permissions.

About ads, well all I can say is that if you've ever seen even a single ad on your BlackBerry 10 device, you've seen more adds than I've seen on my OnePlus One. First thing I do whenever I unbox a Android device is enable system wide, host level ad blocking. Ads simply do not load on my Androids. It doesn't matter if it is in the browser, or in YouTube or in free ad supported apps. Ads never get a chance to load on my Android devices. Open this exact website using the broswer on the BB10 and you will have loaded several times more ads than I will ever load on my Android phone.

So if those are honestly your only two reasons for not switching to Android, I'd so go ahead and go for it. You'll be glad you did.

[Raestloz]

CyanogenMod feeds fake data to the app when you block the corresponding permission. IMO Android should have modular permissions in the first place so developers can fall back gracefully when permissions are denied

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[Tatwi]

It sounds like you should switch to Android.

On point 1, Goolge allows you to disable the collection of data. They also allow you to view and then erase the data that they have collected about you. BlackBerry collects a ton of personal data from their users as well. This data includes things like your real-time location, the contents of your personal messages, and your contacts among several other things. You CANNOT use BlackBerry services without giving them your permission to collect and then share that data. Also, there is no way to view or delete any of the information they have collected about you.

Seems that Google has BlackBerry beat here. I'd love to delete all of the info BlackBerry has on me, but that isn't possible.

On point 2, you're simply mistaken. My current Android phone, the OnePlus One, came with the ability to block any permission I want. I block all of the things you mentioned (along with a few others) for all apps and I've yet to encounter any app that doesn't work because of blocked permissions.

About ads, well all I can say is that if you've ever seen even a single ad on your BlackBerry 10 device, you've seen more adds than I've seen on my OnePlus One. First thing I do whenever I unbox a Android device is enable system wide, host level ad blocking. Ads simply do not load on my Androids. It doesn't matter if it is in the browser, or in YouTube or in free ad supported apps. Ads never get a chance to load on my Android devices. Open this exact website using the broswer on the BB10 and you will have loaded several times more ads than I will ever load on my Android phone.

So if those are honestly your only two reasons for not switching to Android, I'd so go ahead and go for it. You'll be glad you did.

Thanks for the info.

It was my understanding that Google now lets one download the information stored, but they will not delete any of it unless a dispute process is followed. However, that is for voluntary information such as email, youtube, etc and speaks nothing of tracking/meta data. That is the supposedly anonymous data they collect and directly associate with you any way. They pretend it is not personally identifiable, thus they are not obligated by an US law to grant people access to it.

The privacy issues with Android run deep. Here is a good summary,

--- Quote:
Tracking and metadata
Finally, there�s the data that companies collect about the things that you do online, including visits to websites. Google, Facebook and other companies hold a lot of metadata about, for example, who your friends are and which ones you contact most often, the times of day you�re active, how many devices you use (and what they are), and the locations from which you log on. All this reveals a lot about you.

Metadata may extend well beyond a particular service, especially if you use a Google, Facebook, Twitter or other account to log on to different services or leave comments on other web sites. This is why I disabled Facebook Connect and use Google products inside �private browsing� (aka �porn mode�) windows.

Google does let you delete your history and pause data collection on your own account. You accounthistory page has sections for Things you search for, Places you�ve been, your YouTube searches, and Things you�ve watched on YouTube. Google also has a Privacy Policy page, which explains the kinds of information it collects, and what it does with it. Facebook covers much the same ground in What data is stored by Facebook? and its Data Use Policy page.

Internet companies also track you by putting cookies on your PC, browser fingerprinting, �canvas fingerprinting� (using the browser�s Canvas programming interface to draw invisible images to create unique identification numbers) and so on. A typical website may have from 20 to 100 trackers including ClickTale, Disqus, DoubleClick (Google), Facebook Connect, Google Adsense. Google AdWords, Google Analytics, Google Friend Connect, Google+ 1, Microsoft Atlas, Omniture and Visual Revenue. Companies also track you via your smartphone�s apps and Wi-Fi connections.

Tracking is used to create profiles to target you with advertising. That�s what pays for �free� services. As security guru Bruce Schneier has observed: �Surveillance is the business model of the internet.�

Today, the problem isn�t your personal accounts, it�s the tracking data and metadata that you did not freely contribute, that was collected mostly without your knowledge, and that may well be traded between companies.
---End Quote

http://www.theguardian.com/technolog...-personal-data

It's the fact that Google tracks who you call, when you call them, how often you call, where you, what wifi devices are near you at all times, who the contacts of your contacts are if they too have an Android, and so on that are of real concern. Those are things that Google does and, presumably, BlackBerry does not.

All of this profiling and data collection will end up being used in unintended and negative ways, much the same as DNA profiling already being used to force people into paying higher insurance premiums (for a single example). It's not going to end well and I view it as something foolish that I cannot support, either intentionally or through complacency.

Should it be proven that BlackBerry too invades on its users right to privacy in such a manner, I will stop using their devices. However, given the trusted nature of the BlackBerry service by government officials and private sector security folks, BlackBerry appears to be the best we've got at this time.

Ps. I also like the (non-sliding) keyboard.

Posted via CB10

[moegh]

For now I got only 1 sponsored invite

CB10 - Q10