Fantastic (unintended) uses of the PrusaPrinters World page
The PrusaPrinters World page is a fantastic tool for:
-
Stalkers: know the person you're stalking in a rural area has a Prusa printer and have a general idea of where they live but can't exactly pin it down? Both check whether your guess is accurate and get a more exact location!
-
Competitors: Ever wondered what Prusa's sales statistics are per country? Just scrape the map API for unclaimed printers and count how many show up per day SPAM link removed by admins *
-
Thieves: ever wanted to know if someone has a $750 thing in their house while casing it without having to actually go there? PrusaPrinters.org World is the product for you!
All of these fantastic experiences are enabled by the unclaimed printers map which puts printers on a map based on your postal code without asking for consent! Depending on the country, this may literally be building level.
Note: this post is being facetious. It's a really bad idea that Prusa has made this map and it makes me very hesitant to ever buy another one. Furthermore, it is very likely in violation of GDPR and possibly other national privacy laws, and may not even comply with their own privacy policy.
What I want from Prusa:
-
Take down the unclaimed printers on the site. They serve no purpose whatsoever besides making it seem like more users are around. The only use case I can think of is going door to door knocking: "hey mate do you have a Prusa? Can you help me with mine?" which is absurd and creepy in itself.
-
Apologize for exposing customer information without permission.
RE: Fantastic (unintended) uses of the PrusaPrinters World page
Hello.
These concerns were addressed about 20 months ago when prusa printers was launched.
But for the short version.
Points on the map have never been synchronized with the eshop. It was a one time import.
Location points have been randomized, except for users who decided to share an accurate location in their account settings.
Unclaimed printers are already removed from the map.
The full article is here.
Shane (AKA FromPrusa)
RE: Fantastic (unintended) uses of the PrusaPrinters World page
@same-old-shane This original post is spam - note the sneaky link they buried in the text.
RE: Fantastic (unintended) uses of the PrusaPrinters World page
Agreed it must be spam. There were 2 identical posts on the "don't use Prusa gcode" theme recently that I flagged as well. I suspect they're mining for hot topics and using those. Not sure if the same text was used previously, but it would be interesting to see if so.
These are old topics that were hashed out long ago.
RE: Fantastic (unintended) uses of the PrusaPrinters World page
@vintagepc @bobstro Thanks guys. I didn't even notice the link as I've been used to comments like this since prusa printers came out and the privacy concerns were addressed by the company, so I missed that little tidbit... I will remove the link but leave the post since it has the original article linked and if someone wants to see it, then its there.
Thanks again 🙂
Shane (AKA FromPrusa)