Volkswagen Isn't Having Any Of Your Pokémon Go Crap

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I don't know why Volkswagen used the espionage excuse to ban Pokémon Go at work. They could have used the age old "we're paying you to work, not play games" excuse and fired the next person they caught playing Pokémon Go at work.

Volkswagen has informed around 70,000 of its employees that they are amplifying the risk of corporate espionage by playing their silly little augmented reality Pokémon games. Volkswagen sent out an email to approximately 70,000 of its employees informing them that they are not allowed to have Pokémon Go installed on their phones.
 
They are a German company... I wonder if they have Neintails?

I'm fine with not playing it at work. I'm not being paid to play games. But, are these company issued phones? I can see that being a case where it couldn't be installed. Personal phones? Fuck off, VW. (no, I didn't read the f'in article!)
 
Steve said:
I don't know why Volkswagen used the espionage excuse to ban Pokémon Go at work. They could have used the age old "we're paying you to work, not play games" excuse and fired the next person they caught playing Pokémon Go at work.

Volkswagen has informed around 70,000 of its employees that they are amplifying the risk of corporate espionage by playing their silly little augmented reality Pokémon games. Volkswagen sent out an email to approximately 70,000 of its employees informing them that they are not allowed to have Pokémon Go installed on their phones.
Click to expand...

Unless they're supplying phones to their employees, they can fuck off if they think they can dictate what's on their phones. Perhaps they should be more worried about their bullshit emissions fraud, rather than "espionage". Who the fuck is interested in stealing garbage?
 
This supports the argument that people are more productive with less work hours instead of more. Cause if your employee's are playing a cell phone game at work, then they obviously have too many work hours that isn't making them productive. But since everyone needs the hours to make their bread and butter, playing games at work is a good compromise. The flaw of the 40 hour work week.

Also, good luck with banning the app from phones. It's not hard to carry around your own personal phone which the company has no business on what you can or cannot do.
 
Streiw said:
Unless they're supplying phones to their employees, they can fuck off if they think they can dictate what's on their phones. Perhaps they should be more worried about their bullshit emissions fraud, rather than "espionage". Who the fuck is interested in stealing garbage?
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If it's company phones then i agree, that's one thing. If it's personal phones then it's laughable to enforce that. They could mandate no personal phones on work grounds, but i'm fairly sure that's not what they want.
 
Streiw said:
Unless they're supplying phones to their employees, they can fuck off if they think they can dictate what's on their phones. Perhaps they should be more worried about their bullshit emissions fraud, rather than "espionage". Who the fuck is interested in stealing garbage?
Click to expand...

Hypergreatthing said:
If it's company phones then i agree, that's one thing. If it's personal phones then it's laughable to enforce that. They could mandate no personal phones on work grounds, but i'm fairly sure that's not what they want.
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Even if it is your personal phone a business still has the right to state that you can't record or take video inside the building (which I know is different from saying you can't have it installed). Most utility companies have policies like that which make it a felony to record on site without permission as they don't want it know where everything is thus making it easier to take it out. I could see a car company having similar rules to prevent data from being leaked. Having 70,000 people walk around with cameras pointing at everything opens them up for possible loss of trade secrets which would be espionage if they leak said information.
 
You are assuming that Volkswagen thinks the user of the phone would be the one committing espionage. That is a false belief.
 
Streiw said:
Unless they're supplying phones to their employees, they can fuck off if they think they can dictate what's on their phones. Perhaps they should be more worried about their bullshit emissions fraud, rather than "espionage". Who the fuck is interested in stealing garbage?
Click to expand...
Then in the game of escalation your not allowed on any company wifi networks with non company electronics....

Then you are not alowed a phone on your person inside the building....

Lets see where this definant "they cant tell me what to do with my personal electronic stufff that can record and transmit stuff from within the secure areas of our business" ends up taking you
 
Exavior said:
Having 70,000 people walk around with cameras pointing at everything opens them up for possible loss of trade secrets which would be espionage if they leak said information.
Click to expand...

Except I have the camera turned off in Pokémon go.
I don't get to see Pokémon sitting in a real world environment, but I find it's easier to catch them without the distractions.
 
Steve said:
I don't know why Volkswagen used the espionage excuse to ban Pokémon Go at work. They could have used the age old "we're paying you to work, not play games" excuse and fired the next person they caught playing Pokémon Go at work.

Volkswagen has informed around 70,000 of its employees that they are amplifying the risk of corporate espionage by playing their silly little augmented reality Pokémon games. Volkswagen sent out an email to approximately 70,000 of its employees informing them that they are not allowed to have Pokémon Go installed on their phones.
Click to expand...

Augmented reality? Really?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Then in the game of escalation your not allowed on any company wifi networks with non company electronics....

Then you are not alowed a phone on your person inside the building....

Lets see where this definant "they cant tell me what to do with my personal electronic stufff that can record and transmit stuff from within the secure areas of our business" ends up taking you
Click to expand...


Sure, that's fine. Corporations are allowed to deny the usage of personal electronic devices as a policy. Trying to police specific apps on an employee's personal device? Good luck.
 
nutzo said:
Except I have the camera turned off in Pokémon go.
I don't get to see Pokémon sitting in a real world environment, but I find it's easier to catch them without the distractions.
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but that is you, not everyone. Also who can promise that the app won't start turning on the camera without you wanting it too? Your mic can be turned on at will even when the phone is off who is to say that wouldn't happen from an app that is set to use your camera? Yes it is a little tinfoil hattish, but you have to assume what somebody might do or what app might do.
 
Streiw said:
Sure, that's fine. Corporations are allowed to deny the usage of personal electronic devices as a policy. Trying to police specific apps on an employee's personal device? Good luck.
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Possibly... or they could look at people who are staring at their phone while walking around, making upward flicking motions with their finger, glance over at their screen... it's not too hard to find out who is playing Pokemon Go
 
sfsuphysics said:
Possibly... or they could look at people who are staring at their phone while walking around, making upward flicking motions with their finger, glance over at their screen... it's not too hard to find out who is playing Pokemon Go
Click to expand...

Again, you can't police what people do on their phones if you've got a policy in place that allows users to bring their personal property to work. Now, what they're allowed to do on the company network is completely different.
 
The game has been out for some time now. Whatever corporate espionage they are worried about probably has already occurred.
 
Streiw said:
Again, you can't police what people do on their phones if you've got a policy in place that allows users to bring their personal property to work. Now, what they're allowed to do on the company network is completely different.
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If they are at work with their personal property, you damn well can police what they do on THEIR phones.

As I said, it will get draconian if people don't stop being Mr. "My rights are being trampled" and stop fucking playing the god damn game at work.
 
Streiw said:
Again, you can't police what people do on their phones if you've got a policy in place that allows users to bring their personal property to work. Now, what they're allowed to do on the company network is completely different.
Click to expand...

Their IT should just block access to the Pokémon go servers. That would at least stop users on the Company WiFi.
 
sfsuphysics said:
If they are at work with their personal property, you damn well can police what they do on THEIR phones.

As I said, it will get draconian if people don't stop being Mr. "My rights are being trampled" and stop fucking playing the god damn game at work.
Click to expand...


Show me one case where an employer could dictate which applications were installed on a user's personal phone/computer. The only policing a company can legally do (without the employee having agreed to more aggressive terms) to affect an employee's personal devices is to block ports and IPs. What's draconian is how quickly people will tout the "security" aspect to defend their ludicrous policies.

Let's see VW's policy on Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps, which happen to listen to your cell phone's microphone input and base ads off of it. Wouldn't that be far more "espionage"-esque than a fucking AR feature (that doesn't even upload pictures of the environment) in a Pokemon game?
 
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