Spying Soap

[mahalall]

Next time your in the bathroom and you get the feeling your being watched/monitored take a wee peep at that bar of soap!

Hindustan Unilever Limited's (HUL) thought it was a good idea do some market research on customers bathing habits. So they placed microchips in their Lifebuoy soaps and gave them away freely. Unfortunately some miss understandings occurred and rumour spread that the microchips contained cameras!


http://expressbuzz.com/states/kerala/kerala-police-end-mysterious-survey/342239.html

http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/What-a-microchip-has-to-do-with-bathing-soap/26609121596/0/

[seantimberwolf]

Would not surprise me in the slightest,
They have no shame!

[TigaHawk]

what i'm not understanding is...

if the purpose truly was to find out what a customer's bathing habbit was....

once the bar of soap is at home, and being used....


how are they meant to get the data off the thing?


When a bar of soap gets to a certain point, you generaly tack the left over piece onto a new bar of soap, and it dissapears quickly.


So again - how are they meant to get any data at all for this suposit survey?


What is the real reason for the microchips?

[mahalall]

Hi TigaHawk,

The "spy soap" research appears to be have been undertaken by Unilever in conjunction with the WSP (World Sanitation Project, WSP is a multi-donor partnership created in 1978 and administered by the World Bank to support poor people in obtaining affordable, safe, and sustainable access to water and sanitation service). Their research focuses on fecal pathogen transference (e-coli) via the medium of soap.

Their research uses;
A utility of sensor soap, a novel technology for measuring soap use at the household level. Structured observation, while yielding detailed information on handwashing behavior, is subject to reactivity, as demonstrated by the use of motion sensors in bars of soap. Study fi ndings call into question the validity of hand microbiology, given the great variability of results from the
same person’s hands over the course of just a few hours.
It would appear that the researcher has regular close access to the sensor soap so enabling a receiver transmission.

What the local (Kerala) and Indian Media are highlighting is the fears and anxieties caused by research that has been implemented without any ethical or cultural/language consideration.


http://www.wsp.org/wsp/sites/wsp.org/files/publications/WSP_ImprovingMeasures_HWWS.pdf
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-11/thiruvananthapuram/30504229_1_soaps-survey-police-officer

[modwiz]

I would love to get some and make sure it is the soap I wash my butt with. Here's winkin' at ya! LOL

[Snowbird]

I would love to get some and make sure it is the soap I wash my butt with. Here's winkin' at ya! LOL

Can we lovingly invoke an up yours?...I mean, theirs. :doh:

[markpierre]

Oh god, am I going to have to start filtering my toothpaste?

[Chumley]

I need a soap scanner! Maybey Ebay has them.