I opened the survey, read the first few questions and closed it. I thought it was going to be about WYZE products not my shopping habits and everything else about my life.
1 Like
Fair enough. Granted I was being flippant but you know what I mean. This is all marketing nonsense. It’s not the deep state boogieman
2 Likes
No worries, I know what you mean and I agree with your deep state boogeyman statement!
I’m not a paranoid person. There’s just zero reason to ask gun ownership in what was supposed to be a Wyze product survey….
1 Like
If it was for future product, they should say so! Even the doctors office ask about gun ownership. Why? Someone wants that information….I’ve been in law enforcement for most if my adult life and this type of question is strictly for tracking purposes….
I originally posted with deeply felt outrage. I still feel the outrage, but as the post was rejected, I have reconsidered my original reply. To bypass any naughty language censorship (appropriate, as this is an open forum, and there is no way of telling the age of readers), I have obscured the naughty bits, and have removed some of the more vitriolic portions.:
I belief myself to be fairly reserved, well-mannered, polite, and proper.
I find that communications are best when words are carefully selected, properly chosen, correctly used, precise.Regarding the survey that you wanted me to take part in, “for a CHANCE to win a $100 Wyze gift card!”, and your NON-OPTIONAL question, “Do you own a firearm?”
It’s not just enough to stop the survey, part way through. It’s very important for me to communicate what I feel about this question appearing in your survey.
I want to be very precise here:
It’s NONE OF YOUR #@$!%%# BUSINESS .
I don’t think I can express that with any less emotion.
“GO THEE AND KNOW THYSELF" (BIBLICALLY).The survey question was patently offensive, asinine, and divisive. It should not have appeared on the survey in its present form, or at very least, should have been an optional question, perhaps with a “decline to answer” choice, or just have been a question that could have been by-passed.
–
To those feel that the question “no big deal”, or unimportant:
If that was the case, it should have been
- left off of the survey (Why ask unimportant things),
- re-worded (the survey should have been reviewed multiple times, and passed some form of review), or
- made optional (letting the user skip the question, state specifically “decline to answer”, etc.)
“Is it about tracking?” If you knew all of the ways you are tracked by the IT giants, you would realize that is a ridiculous question. It’s all about tracking. There’s little that we can do about it, but why should we agree to it?
If they want to review the questions and re-issue the survey, it might become a non-issue, but for right now? Big Issue: Things that technology partners should not ask about you.
I don’t own guns. I don’t care if anyone else legally owns guns for any reason and you don’t have to justify it to me because it’s legal.
Asking why a question is on a survey does not make me part of a “woke mob” whatever that is.
If they wanted a survey about anything concerning guns they could have put that in the beginning instead of wasting my time.
Do I think they are tracking me or creating a profile? Nope but it should have been an optional question.
The next part of the survey is about smart devices to help secure your guns, is this something your interested in?
It’s really that simple but if they want to toss out the first part of the survey, it’s their marketing business, it just seemed like an odd way to get information about a very specific product.
Of course we’re assuming they’re considering developing a gun security product but we don’t really know.
2 Likes
To clarify, by “woke mob” I was referring to the anti-gun lobby and how I won’t act like I’m doing something morally wrong by hiding the fact that I own guns. It’s not morally wrong, it’s perfectly legal, my right and yours, and I’ll challenge anyone that says otherwise. Questioning Wyze as to why that was on a survey is completely reasonable and they should have expected some criticism for it considering how it was worded.
But no one suggested any such thing. There was no need to add that to the conversation about why a question about guns was added to a tech survey with out any context.
It doesn’t need to be suggested, it’s implied based on the criticism of the question and other folks’ concerns regarding tracking.
And there is the current problem in our country. I criticized the question, I am not part of any mob.
Your assumption is incorrect.
I wasn’t referring to you, I was agreeing with you.
I was just considering, let’s say they added an option to decline to answer that question. 99% of the people who decline to answer that question could probably safely be considered as part of the “Yes I own a gun” category. Most people who feel strongly against guns are likely to be proud to answer NO that they don’t have a gun. Also, nearly all the partial surveys that end at that part of the survey could also safely be marked by them as “yes, another customer who owns guns.” So declining to answer or continue is pretty safely a good bet that person owns guns and has strong political preferences about others knowing they have guns. Therefore refusing to answer or stopping the survey is as good as an answer of yes if they are really interested in the subjected…if you don’t want them to know, the only real option is to say “no.” Everything else is pretty solidly a “Yes” answer.
Though it does seem curious to me why a person would be concerned about a semi-anonymous survey question (on which you can even leave out your email address at the end) about whether or not guns are owned and will remain mostly with a single private company, and then instead go to a public forum that is accessed by anyone and everyone and indexed by Google and big data companies and saved forever and in there tell everyone that a gun is owned…either clearly and directly or by implication. If one intends for ownership of guns to be kept private, discussing this in a public forum with a lot of information that can potentially be traced back to you (if someone thinks a username or email addresses other patterns can’t be traced to them if really desired…well, they’re definitely not as anonymous as most people think, especially for any group with enough resources) seems worse than answering a relatively private survey…seems to me like if this were a concern that keeping silent would be the best course of action in that situation for the desired result.
Lot of assumptions there.
I don’t own guns, I ended the survey at that question. I have no problem stating that fact and most of my freinds and family that own guns have no problem letting others know they own guns.
My question to Wyze was why the question in the middle of a survey without context? The post I started and my responses had nothing to do with gun ownership.
I’m more curious about the way it was presented in order to get information, I assume, about some new product they are, or want, to develop.
Wyze suffered a data leak in 2019 where personal information of over 2-million of its users was exposed.
Single private companies make mistakes. Keeping silent doesn’t get answers either.
1 Like
There are always outliers in everything of course, but nearly all stats take that into account with a margin of error . Hence why I also said “most” or nearly all. I was indicating probability rather than precision (which is nearly impossible when dealing with humans). Even in this situation, they will expect that some people without guns mark yes, some with them will mark no, and some didn’t even read the question and marked randomly to get through the survey quickly to get their lottery ticket, and some that mark one way or the other for various reasons…but despite these outliers and exceptions to the rule, I was simply indicating the pattern in general would mostly be more accurate to assume this than the other way around. And since they don’t care about the accuracy of a single response, but what the overall average is among lots of responses, then it is still a fairly accurate “assumption” in general for this purpose and they could reasonably make those assumptions despite a small margin of error of some people it wouldn’t apply to (such as yourself). they just need enough of an estimate to determine whether or not there is a potential market for the product they’re considering. That’s really all that matters, and they could get that reasonably accurately with those assumptions.
I didn’t intend my post to be personal or directed at anyone specific, so I do apologize if it in any way was perceived thus. I have always been very much into research and such things, so I am just speaking from that experience, not my political preferences (which I do not bring into their forum).
And like I said previously, I do agree they could’ve reworded in a way that would be less triggering and respectful to people in general who may have strong opinions about the issue. Again, my apologies if my comment came off as anything other than an observation of the general implications that could reasonably be deduced in most cases based on the reaction to it.
They are asking because they want to see if its worth making a “smart gun safe” which is a stupid idea. A firearm(as you know) could be a lot of things. Black powder is a firearm and not regulated.
It’s a product marketing survey. If people want to get in on the $100 chance, they don’t have to answer it truthfully.
1 Like
Merely being on the internet makes you exposed. There is no way to be 100% safe and anonymous online. You can be pretty safe and pretty secure but as long as you are using an internet connection, you are tracked. Part of my day job is managing analytics and ads for various platforms. The amount of info available just by searching for an item online is immense. Signing up for a Wyze account exposes you, facebook(LOL) is just an open book for personal info. Gmail, hotmail, any product with an account and your info is out there. You’re only real option is to not use info that you are about being exposed. Its a huge hassle but worth it in my opinion. Sure some of my real info is out there but not much. Its all about convenience. The more convenient, the less secure and vice versa.
About the wyze breach, they were very transparent about it(unlike most breaches) and fixed the issue. I doubt they will suffer another anytime soon, but it is worth checking your own info at www.haveibeenpwned.com That site will show where your info has been exposed.
1 Like
Absolutely, I agree 100%. I was speaking of others who are concerned about their gun ownership status being tracked. Signing up for a Wyze account exposes you but I think asking about gun ownership kicks that level of anxiety up another notch for some users.
I wasn’t criticizing Wyze over the data breach, just pointing out that leaks do happen. They did handle it quickly and professionally from everything that I’ve read.
1 Like
This is so old, in Internet time, that it’s fossilized. However, there’s still some viable DNA in the center of the leg bones.
Not that this means anything (because it’s all in our imaginations), but Mr. Zuckerberg, please take note, but - “I, for one, WELCOME our evil, alien, overlords.”
Just to make it easier on Big Tech, I have 7 table knives, a bread knife, a carving knife, a fillet knife, a wood saw, a nail gun, a heavy duty stapler, a long bb gun, a CO2 bb pistol, and a weird thing that fires 1/2" plastic disks. That’s about the extend of my dangerous weapons. Oh, and a knock-off “Nerf” pistol, but it doesn’t work.
1 Like