. Retail stores will soon be able to follow you around the store ? or even outside the store if you just walk by without entering ? using the WiFi antenna built into your smartphone.
How would they do it? Pretty simple really. When you come within range of a properly configured WiFi access point, it can record the wireless MAC address of your phone ? a unique 12-digit number. Every time you pass by, that AP can log that number. If you enter that store or caf? every day, it will soon have a detailed record of when you (or at least your phone) entered and departed.
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From the retailer?s perspective, this information can be a virtual gold mine. For the first time they can easily track where customers go after they enter the store. They can identify repeat customers and first timers. They can find out whether shoppers are spending a lot of time in the toy aisle but rarely visit sporting goods or home appliances, and reconfigure the store layout accordingly. They can share data across different locations ? to gauge whether the same customers spend more time in their discount outlets or shop at the locations closer to major freeway exits. They can even track people who walk by the store every day but never go in, or if more people enter after a window display is changed.
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Once the retailer has tied your MAC address to your identity, all kinds of fun things can happen. The store can send you discount coupons to entice you into aisles you rarely visit. If they have your phone number, the store could send you a text when you walk by, trying to lure you in. A retailer can marry that data to your online activities to further analyze who you are and how it can get you to spend more time and money in its stores, or sell that information to a third party.
And, assuming the retailer stores that data, it can hand it over to any legal authority with the appropriate paperwork.
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But if you do mind that stores can follow you around, there isn?t much you can do about it. You can of course turn off your phone?s WiFi when in public. I don?t know about you, but the only time I remember to do that is when I get a low battery warning. You can always pay cash (at least, until that practice becomes a quaint remnant of our pre-digital past). You can opt out as noted above, but you?ll need to do it for every mobile device you own and with every analytics company out there. (Had you heard of Euclid Analytics before you read this? I hadn?t. Are there others? Beats me.) In that way it?s much like opting out of Web tracking ? an onerous chore where the burden is entirely on the person being tracked.
So the question for today is: Who?s minding the store when the store is minding you?
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Originally Posted by T_M
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