this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024

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AssholeDesign

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This is a community for designs specifically crafted to make the experience worse for the user. This can be due to greed, apathy, laziness or just downright scumbaggery.

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'"Walmartwifi" isn't compatible with iCloud Private Relay' | Store demands privacy sacrifice to use internet in their cavernous dead zone of a building (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by lemmingnosis@lemmy.world to c/assholedesign@lemmy.world

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This is after forcing login to a store account:

At least they don’t hide in their ToS that:

“l agree to let Walmart monitor my use of Walmart WiFi, including to:

Determine my presence in Walmart stores
Associate information about me with my Walmart account
Improve products and services
Gather market insights about my in-store purchases and activities”

But that’s not enough, they need to monitor your internet activity further too.

For further reading, some greatest hits (the section headers on Wiki’s Criticism of Walmart):

Local communities
Allegations of predatory pricing and supplier issues
Labor relations
Poorly run and understaffed stores
No AEDs in stores (automated external defibrillators)
Imports and globalization
Product selection
Taxes
Animal welfare
Midtown Walmart
Opioids settlement

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[–] ef9357@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

Please just don’t use public WiFi and if you do, assume that your privacy and security are at risk.

[–] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The irony of using Apple products, thinking "Private" means "private".

[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Do you think the advertising company’s phone is more private?

Google doesn’t make money when you buy a Samsung Galaxy. Google tracks everything you do on your Galaxy. They then take this data and sell targeted advertisement at you. Google makes money when they sell you to advertisers.

Apple makes money when you buy an iPhone.

[–] IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nah. Their network their rules. Quit your bitching or use 5g.

[–] lemmingnosis@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

privacy sacrifice to use internet in their cavernous dead zone of a building

It was a worthwhile sacrifice, but I’m definitely gonna name & shame! Wouldn’t touch WiFi if it weren’t a dead zone.

Also gave me a chance to complain about some of their other business practices. (Certainly wouldn’t have shopped there if I hadn’t been asked to this one time.)

I’ve never seen this message before so they seem an outlier even in the greedy corporate world. Enough complaints and every once in a while a business changes their practices. Why not whine a little? 🙂

[–] IamAnonymous@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Every public WiFi is like this. iCloud relay doesn’t work on any airport or airplane WiFi. I need to always turn it off and other ‘hide IP’ settings. I have a Target with a dead zone and I’m sure T&C are the same. I just use it when I need it and don’t auto-connect. Walmart needs precise location to pick up from the app. Sam’s club app needs precise location for checkout form the app. Mcd app needs my precise location to give me deals. I wouldn’t say this is asshole design. Our regulation let them design it this way. I turn off my NextDNS and iCloud relay when I’m having issues and then turn back on. Nothing else you can do about it, apart from not using the WiFi or app, unfortunately.

[–] IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

The privacy community and yourself have become the equivalent of windows UAC. It's tiresome and no sane person with an understanding of technology would ever have the expectation of privacy on a public WiFi network. There are legal and compliance obligations.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dude, I understand technolgy enough to know that when I use the HTTPS protocol, I have privacy on my packets.

You keep trying to associate the expectation of privacy with a lack of technical knowledge, but I have technical knowledge and you’re wrong.

[–] suction@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Why because you know what https means?

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's the legal and compliance part the downvotes don't understand.

As a business, I would never operate an open-to-the-public network. The liability is too great.

[–] undefined@links.hackliberty.org 2 points 11 months ago

How is allowing people to use a VPN a legal/compliance issue? If anything the traffic is exiting to the internet elsewhere and because it’s encrypted you can’t see what’s happening, essentially offloading responsibility to someone else while still providing access.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

And what y’all legal and compliance people don’t understand is that we make the rules. Life is not just about complying with rules. It’s about making them too.

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

complaining about a lack of privacy on a public wifi node is like complaining that people are perverts for looking at your genitals when you run down the street naked.

[–] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not entirely sure if this is possible but I'm increasingly suspicious that they started jamming outside networks within their warehouse. Of course it makes sense that mobile data doesn't really work inside a giant steel warehouse, so perhaps it's just confirmation bias, but I can't seem to recall not having any mobile data signal at all until my last walmart visit.

I used to keep to myself and look up the location of the item I was looking for online. If they want me to bother a floor person for it though, doing that is highly preferable to giving walmart my email to sell along with any information they can extrapolate from my usage of their network.

[–] IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes, Walmart is committing felonies 🙄

[–] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Excuse me for not knowing the precise legal landscape involved in covertly blocking the use of outside networks inside of a private warehouse department store

[–] AlotOfReading@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

For future reference, jamming radio equipment is illegal essentially everywhere on earth because it's banned by the ITU rules, which every country on earth has adopted with the sole exception of Palau. Palau isn't an exception here though, because they've also also adopted those rules in a roundabout "not-actually-joining the ITU" way.