Return of Wifi on Virgin Australia

[twinaisle]

Keep in mind that Virgin is now a hybrid carrier and not competing directly head to head with Qantas. It's not the same company anymore where everything is inclusive.

 

[Mattg]

It's not free on Qantas, really, it's built into the cost of their tickets, that's just marketing doing its job to convince you it's free.

I always thought wifi was free on Qantas because they collect data from you when you connect.

 

[oz_mark]

It's not free on Qantas, really, it's built into the cost of their tickets, that's just marketing doing its job to convince you it's free.

There's a reason Qantas use the word 'complimentary'.

 

[Daver6]

I always thought wifi was free on Qantas because they collect data from you when you connect.

You can be certain paid services on flights are doing the same.

 

[33kft]

I always thought wifi was free on Qantas because they collect data from you when you connect.

What sort of data are you thinking they are collecting? There is a reasonably limited scope for this, they could get the hostnames of services connected to (via SNI or DNS lookups) but no content given everything is encrypted nowadays, and they have no way of tying that back to a particular device or passenger since they no longer require you to put in seat details.

They'd probably make 100x times more out of making you watch the 30 second ad for some expensive watch when you connect than anything they would collect from users data.

 

[simmomelb]

Exactly, there isn't any valid reason to collect data from you even if they could, it's of no real use.
They aren't an advertising company like Google, where targeting ads is how they make almost all of their revenue.

 

[SeaWolf]

Maybe not directly but they could do like services in the USA and sell the data to brokers. Why do you think all these shopping centres provide free WiFi? It's not out of the goodness of their hearts.

These are the largest data brokers in America

Data brokers in America know more about any of us than we know about ourselves! Access the Big Six and steps to opt out from data sharing.

privacybee.com

 

[simmomelb]

Maybe not directly but they could do like services in the USA and sell the data to brokers. Why do you think all these shopping centres provide free WiFi? It's not out of the goodness of their hearts.

These are the largest data brokers in America

Data brokers in America know more about any of us than we know about ourselves! Access the Big Six and steps to opt out from data sharing.

privacybee.com

They still don't have access to your private data, it's fully encrypted, so all they can see are URL's you visit, which I couldn't care less, they are public URL:s and they don't know who I am, have my age, gender, seat number or anything else that identifies me. So it's of no concern IMO.
Also, if Qantas or Virgin did this, it must be declared or they'll end up paying a lot more than any possible dollars they make from it.
Actually, my other half manages public WiFi in one of the major shopping centres (and their IT in general) in Australia (very strong privacy laws in Australia) and they definitely do not use any of search history (URL's) or any other data. It's purely there as a reason for customers to stay in the shopping centre longer (spend more), which in itself is unlikely given a huge drop in WiFi internet use in this environment over the last 5 years, but that's very different to an aircraft where 4G isn't available for the majority of the flight.

 

[33kft]

Why do you think all these shopping centres provide free WiFi? It's not out of the goodness of their hearts.

It's hardly comparable. The only way they are getting data is by sending you to a captive portal where you need to supply details like name, email etc to get access.

QF WiFi is a part of a paid product. As this thread has pointed out, nobody is getting anything for free. It's part of the higher ticket price.

The article doesn't suggest in any way that free WiFi providers are making any money simply from the act of allowing people to use the WiFi for free without prompting for personal information and simply from harvesting anonymous user data. If there was money in that, internet service providers would be a goldmine.

The value is in the info that you prompt users for in order to use the WiFi, and QF does not prompt for anything except watching an ad, hence why I am 99% confident that is the only source of additional revenue offered by the WiFi product.

There is really no additional user data to be harvested.

 

[Mattg]

What sort of data are you thinking they are collecting?

This is what it says in the Qantas Free Wi-Fi Terms of Service:

Qantas will collect information about you and your use of the Service (including your name, device type used, MAC address and complete browsing history) in order to:

1. improve the Service;
2. ensure the safety and security of all passengers when travelling with us;
3. conduct marketing activities and research.

 

[simmomelb]

This is what it says in the Qantas Free Wi-Fi Terms of Service:

Device type and mac address reveal no personal data, every device hands this over, it's how devices connect point to point, just as I can login to my router and see this and just as your telco can see device type, the mobile device you're using and IMEI number (MAC address).
Browsing history simply means the URL's you've accessed when using it, still no personal data connecting your identity to a public URL.
They can't get your name whether they say this or not, it's impossible without you voluntarily entering it via a portal, which they do not ask for (at this stage).

 

[33kft]

This is what it says in the Qantas Free Wi-Fi Terms of Service:

Yes, but there's a big difference between what's reserved in the T&Cs and what is technically feasible.

In the past, you were prompted for Seat # and Surname. Hence the provision for personal details. These are not collected anymore.

The collection of the Device MAC is an implicit requirement of the provision of the service and would also likely be stored for the purpose of legal investigations regarding the use of the service, but alone does not provide the identity of an individual. It is however considered PII because it links to a specific device and could then be used with other information to identify a user, and hence the need for these provisions.

Similarly, they probably collect logs to some degree on what is accessed via the wifi service for any legal requirements they may face, but it's going to be very difficult to tie those to a person. People will say well, you have the MAC address, but that's only useful if you have the device itself to validate the MAC against and can be reasonably confident it wasn't spoofed.

So while the T&Cs make sense when you consider how these details might get used in aggregate (ie the Safety and Security provision which is where most of these would apply), using a MAC address for marketing activities alone makes no sense, unless they're trying to see how many Huawei users are on flights? They do not have your identity (outside of your device MAC which is PII but not the identity of an individual) simply because you connected to the Wifi Access Point.

 

[Daver6]

I think everyone is forgetting how easily you can be tracked using browser cookies here. No, the airline isn't interested in stealing your private session data. What is of interest to data companies is what you're interested in and building profiles.

 

[33kft]

I think everyone is forgetting how easily you can be tracked using browser cookies here

The relevance to the Wifi connectivity is very tenuous - yes you can be uniquely identified by browser cookies but the Wifi service doesn't provide any of that data and doesn't make it much easier to deliver the cookie - yes it could perhaps link your existing identity data with the fact that you're flying, but Qantas.com could do that much easier at booking time and not everyone uses the wifi service so it's an expensive way of doing something the airline could already do at booking time.

If linking your identity to your browsing was really so valuable for the wifi service, they'd be still asking for your seat number and surname and not paying some external company to ascertain those details via tracking cookies.

Also, a lot of browsers restrict tracking cookies by reputation now (eg Safari) making them less and less valuable over time. At the end of the day I doubt the in-flight wifi makes tracking cookies any more prevalent as the method of connectivity has barely anything to do with it outside of needing to press the button on the captive portal to get connected, but there's nothing particularly special about requiring this (and you could just click it in incognito mode if you really were concerned).

The only other realistic vector here would be that Qantas inject a tracking cookie from qantas.com and track you via wifi.qantas.com (which I think redirects to viasat.com so they'd still need something within the qantas.com domain to read that cookie) but they still need to know your identity so you still need to have logged in via that particular device to qantas.com to either book or access QFF. Yes, it's pretty likely that you accessed the website and not the app on the device you are then using to access wifi but nowhere near 100%, but QF already know you were on that flight, right? And they can't see the L7 content of your traffic so all they get is some destination addresses that you access. This is some really complex interaction to gather some data that they both have on the manifest and that they used to ask for at login time and no longer do. None of it makes sense if tracking really was the desired outcome.

 

[encryptededdy]

They do not have your identity (outside of your device MAC which is PII but not the identity of an individual) simply because you connected to the Wifi Access Point.

Also modern versions of Android, iOS, and Windows will all randomise your MAC when connecting to new wifi networks anyway, so it's not possible to track a device across multiple networks by MAC.

 

[MooTime]

I think this a good value deal, wifi for J & WP, everybody pays a few rubles, sounds very much hybrid / mid-range carrier to me.

I guess for work related travel, there could be an option at booking to add wifi then & there so no reimbursement hassle, it could go right after or before "Do you want to fly green with zero carbon offset, pay just $xx.xx"

 

[jakeseven7]

Keep in mind that Virgin is now a hybrid carrier and not competing directly head to head with Qantas. It's not the same company anymore

Exactly, we have to lower our expectations - its hardly surprising, they have done multiple market research sessions about paying for everything (from priority boarding to wifi etc and this will no doubt continue). The VA1 business is gone now.

 

[simmomelb]

Very true. Not every airline needs to offer the same business model as another, it is approaching this very differently now and so far, it's paying off for the business, so I don't see them backflipping on the VA2 mid-market option anytime soon as it would probably work against them.

This doesn't make one airline necessarily any better than another as we all have different needs and match those to our preferences.

You'll find plenty of people that would never fly with Qantas, or Jetstar or Virgin for that matter, and others that aren't brand loyal at all and simply select the best departure time, price or a partner airline for their journey.

I think it's quite good that we now have 3 major domestic brands to select from which all approach the customer experience very differently.

 

[HS-TQE]

Four brands towards the end of October (at the earliest) or early 2023 if you count Bonza's regional 'Allegiant US' point to point model, which is yet to be tried here despite the lower population in Australia.

 

[XWu]

Not sure about the “high-speed” description of QF wifi.
It can be hit and miss depending on the day/metal/crew who are slow in rebooting the system if on the blink
The best wifi speed I experienced was not even close to shopping mall speed, different equipment and challenges (plus its free for all) I know but I would be careful about raisiNg expectations for those who is yet to experience Qi wifi available since 2018 or so (no change in qua I afaik)