I'm pretty sure that first paragraph is false. Until I explicitly agree to a contract, or "terms and conditions", I am not bound by anything. If a site I navigate to embeds content from another website I am not immediately bound by the terms and conditions of that neclsred site, to think otherwise would invite madness.
Not to mention the fact that terms and conditions are not contracts. I don't think they carry the same weight, although someone please correct me on this if I am incorrect.
I think this is a good idea, but in no way should it be the only restrained game. Others could be time restraints (total time per game and/or total time per move), depth restraints (if they both work off of BFS/similar), and probably many other restraints that those more familiar with the engines can come up with.
I can answer some of these... keep in mind this perspective is from the Android ecosystem, where I was able to get a similar system working.
1. Apps can be running in the background. I'd say its more common than you think
2. You need to provide location permissions (either the ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION or ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION). It seems like every app requests these permissions anyway, so not a red flag just on its own.
3. Something scanning for a WIFI devices has no way (easily) to coorelate those addresses back to a user. With this bluetooth low energy method, the users own phone is the one who reports the detection back to {company}'s servers, so it can pass along any/all other information it has about you. Their location accuracy is also pretty crazy (radius is within centimeters if they've done it well).
4. Bluetooth low energy is actually crazy easy to set up, see here for more...
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/blue...
To me there is a difference between what you describe, where hardware deployed in stores collect detected bluetooth signatures, and what this article describes, which is YOUR OWN DEVICE reporting on your movements.
I actually implemented a nearly identical system for my senior design project, except we targeted the smart home ecosystem. Basic use cases would be automatically turning on/off lights or having a music stream/temperature preference/... follow you as you move throughout your house and enter/leave rooms. All implemented by an app on your phone detecting strategically placed beacons.
This is incorrect. Your phone detects the beacons, not the other way around, and then forwards the notifications to {insert app here}, and then the app sends information (beacon id, user_id, ...) to their servers.
I actually implemented a nearly identical system for my senior design project, except we targeted the smart home ecosystem. Basic use cases would be automatically turning on/off lights or having a music stream/temperature preference/... follow you as you move throughout your house and enter/leave rooms. All implemented by an app on your phone detecting strategically placed beacons.
Not to mention the fact that terms and conditions are not contracts. I don't think they carry the same weight, although someone please correct me on this if I am incorrect.