Malls Track Shoppers' Cell Phones On Black Friday

antdude writes in with a story about two U.S. malls that plan on tracking shoppers' movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones this Friday. "The management company of both malls, Forest City Commercial Management, says personal data is not being tracked. 'We won't be looking at singular shoppers,' said Stephanie Shriver-Engdahl, vice president of digital strategy for Forest City. 'The system monitors patterns of movement. We can see, like migrating birds, where people are going to.' Still, the company is preemptively notifying customers by hanging small signs around the shopping centers. Consumers can opt out by turning off their phones."

Comments

Opt out

[Elgonn]

"Consumers can opt out by turning off their phones."
I guess by that metric people who don't go there are also opting out.

Re:Opt out

[Robert Bowles]

Suppose you root through people's trash and search for financial information. As long as you promise not to use it to single anyone out, its not malevolent. Anyone who doesn't like it can "opt-out" by keeping the trash in their house.

Re:opt out

[Anonymous Coward]

I can "opt out" by telling the retails to go fuck themselves.

In fact, I think I'll call a few of them right now and tell them why they just lost customers. I can "opt out" by taking my business elsewhere.

Re:opt out

[Stormthirst]

Except Amazon's shit at it. They keep on trying to sell me stuff I've already bought from them. It's rare for me to want to buy the same DVD twice, despite what the MPAA wants (ie one copy of a DVD per person watching the movie)

Re:Opt out

[Fluffeh]

Well, at least you chaps over in the US aren't alone. I submitted a story about six weeks ago about two malls in Australia that were using the exact same technology. It made the local papers here, but never prominently.

It's okay, soon, we will forget about it and given that other countries are also doing it, we will accept it as the norm.

*sips coffee*

Re:opt out

[newcastlejon]

I suggest you call your friends first and then the mall; boycotting is pointless if one is the only person doing it.

Re:Opt out

[Dunbal]

I choose to opt in by having my trash shipped to Forest City malls.

Re:opt out

[jhobbs]

I'm not exactly sure which country you are from, but here in the U.S. a billboard is never a "sign. . . [that] doesn't do anything."

There are billboards that recognize your car and greet you personally:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/business/media/29cooper.html

There are billboards that aggregate the fm radio stations being listen to in passing cars the show the advert most likely to target the largest percentage of passing drivers:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/27/business/media-business-advertising-new-billboards-sample-radios-cars-go-then-adjust.html

Interactive advertising inundates our modern lives. You're individual concerns aren't worth as much as the advertising dollars spent on you. No one cares that you feel like your privacy is being trampled, you're a target demographic and consumer. That makes your interests important only if your spending money. Opting out only makes advertisers not care what your opinion is because you are a "fringe demographic".

On a personal note, I still hate interactive movie posters. Ever since I walked past a poster for Step-Brothers and Will Ferrel scarred the piss outta me by suddenly coming to life and badgering me to come see the movie.

Re:opt out

[residieu]

I think that I shall never see: A billboard lovely as a tree. Indeed, unless the billboards fall: I'll never see a tree at all.

-Ogden Nash

Re:opt out

[causality]

It's funny how people don't seem so nutso when you have a clearer understanding of a topic.

That's one of the most widely recognized yet unwritten rules of Slashdot. I'm one of the few stubborn non-conformists who don't follow it.

The rule goes: "never miss an opportunity to be condescending and talk to someone like they must be a total idiot -- if they say anything that could be interpreted in an absurd way, don't EVER assume that maybe you have misunderstood them because that would mean missing an opportunity to meet your desperate need to feel superior to random strangers who have done you no harm."

It goes along with other rules such as "never infer anything on your own -- be deliberately dense, mechanically and literally interpret everything, and impatiently require that every possible nuance of a subject be spelled out for you" and "if you dislike something, or it offends you, or you wish it weren't true, it must be factually incorrect and you have no burden of proof when you claim it has been falsified" and "Googling an unfamiliar term takes a whole 20 seconds if you are particularly slow and this is such a terrible burden it is better to spend 10 minutes asking other people to do it for you and report back on the results."

It could be called sacrificing one's dignity at the altar of the ego.

opt out

[nitehawk214]

>Consumers can opt out by turning off their phones.

I can opt out of billboards by not driving and staying at home. I can opt out of spam by not having an email account.

opt out, I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

Jammers?

[MrQuacker]

What will happen if you walk around with a jammer in your pocket/bag?

Re:Jammers?

[Penguinisto]

Jammer? Hell, I was curious to see what would happen if I swapped out the SIM card from the phone every time I walk into a different store, or perhaps at random? Gather the whole family's pile o' SIMs, and maybe a couple of expired ones (they still work for emergency calls, so odds are good their signal will pick up).

I figure if enough folks did that in one mall (say, 100-200 people?), the algorithms would show enough crap data to basically have the management demanding their money back from the company that sold it to 'em.

Even better... I wonder what would happen if you and enough cohorts went to the mall, selected some bits to buy at different stores, walked up to the counter, and proclaimed to the cashier that "this is what I would have bought if your mall wasn't so invasive of my privacy by tracking my cell signal", then walk out, leaving the goods on the counter unpaid-for.

Not as abusive YET

[AdamJS]

But some day soon, it will be.
When there's a large enough pool of data on given subset of users "Anon" F through Q, analytical processes and programs will be able to determine when a member of said subset appears somewhere.

Using inter-subset heuristics, this information could be refined further to detail the habits of the individuals, such as Anon M.

While still technically "Anonymous", it would require a very, very small pool of data and additional research/tracking to determine who that Anonymous user actually is.

The technology is almost (if not already) there, and the real setback at the moment is simply not having all of that data yet.

move

[JustOK]

We are tracking your movements. You can opt out by not moving.

enhance your shopping experience?

[fahrbot-bot]

Still, the company is preemptively notifying customers by hanging small signs around the shopping centers. Consumers can opt out by turning off their phones.

Ya, but the sign shown doesn't mention turning off your phone... Just to visit the Management Office or visit their website if you have questions. Of course, visiting the office will entail getting tracked. Also, I'm not sure how tracking our phones will help "enhance your shopping experience".

Re:enhance your shopping experience?

[kent_eh]

It will enhance the mall's experience of you shopping.
Just like those "customer loyalty" thingies. Do you really thing they are for *your* benefit?

They will use it to improve their ability to get money out of your pocket and into theirs.
Why do I want to help them do that??

Re:enhance your shopping experience?

[geekoid]

But the way they uses this information to get money is by offering things people want.

Dude, they don't use it to grab money out of your wallet.
They don't care about YOU. they care about the patterns of movement in the mall.
Benefits to you:
A) Better mall layout
B) better crowd control
C) Accurate information on shopping habits
D) more stuff more people want.

Re:enhance your shopping experience?

[Stormthirst]

The difference between the loyalty thingy and this is that the loyalty thingy pays you a nominal amount. The amount you get paid varies from company to company, and usually you can only buy from that company. It's purely an opt-in process.

This on the other hand gives you nothing - and it's opt out in the one of the most invasive ways. Most people carry phones because they want to be contactable.

Re:enhance your shopping experience?

[B1oodAnge1]

The end result is the same. Less money in my pocket. And I'm supposed to be happy about that.

To be fair, the end result is twofold: less money in your pocket and more "things" in your house.

If you engage in a commercial transaction that does not provide added value to you, then you are entirely at fault.

Re:enhance your shopping experience?

[Attila Dimedici]

That reminds me of something it took my wife the longest thing to figure out. When the grocery store near us introduced self-checkout, I refused to use them even when I only had one or two items. My wife could not understand why. I explained to her it was a matter of principle. When they introduced them, they started to run these announcements over the in store intercom about every five minutes that said something along the line of, "For your convenience, we now have self-checkout lanes." I knew full well that they did not put the self-checkout lanes in for my convenience. They put the self-checkout lanes in to save money on cashiers. Of course, it has turned out not to have worked out that way for them, as a recent article on slashdot mentioned (I wonder how much that has to do with their attempt to mislead their customers as to why they were doing it).

Get used to it

[macwhizkid]

I'd be surprised if other large commercial destinations (malls, amusement parks, sporting venues, etc) aren't using this tech already. It's not like these two malls invented it themselves, and even if they're the first to use it, it must have been beta tested somewhere.

I think we can agree that the "we won't be looking at singular shoppers" reassurance is completely ridiculous. As though there's some algorithm to digitally count the devices on a network and track their locations without, umm, actually counting them? The only question is how long the data is stored.

At the same time, even opting out now is pointless, as we've established that the phone company, the police, and the FBI all have access to your phone's location tracking information. It's a bit late to worry about whether or not to use things like Apple's "Find My Friends" app. Best to avoid owning a cell phone altogether if you're worried about being tracked, or at least leave it behind (and turn it off) when you don't want to be followed.

Anonymous? So Far...

[zentec]

TFA:

"The tracking system, called FootPath Technology, works through a series of antennas positioned throughout the shopping center that capture the unique identification number assigned to each phone (similar to a computer's IP address), and tracks its movement throughout the stores. ... And it doesn't collect any personal details associated with the ID, like the user's name or phone number. That information is fiercely protected by mobile carriers, and often can be legally obtained only through a court order. "

Yet. You can bet your sweet bippy that while the mall can't get the identifying information, the mall *will* sell it to the carriers who do have the information. This would be a marketing goldmine for the carriers, and one they could not help but to exploit for fun and most importantly, profit.

I would opt out by simply not shopping at that mall. My cellular phone is for my own convenience and one that I pay to maintain, it isn't so companies can figure out where I shop and give them incentive to try to get me to be a good little consumer and spend all my money.

My tolerance for this kind of thing is getting lower each time I read stories like this. More and more, companies seem to view the public as sheep to be shorn without any expectation of privacy, rights nor recourse.

This was covered in /. in 2008...

[dkegel]

See http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/05/18/1838222/shopping-centers-track-customers-via-cell-phone-signals

Newfangled Shopping

[retroworks]

Back in the day, the malls had a person with a thumb-clicker counting people as they walked through doors. I didn't consider it a privacy issue. And I assume while I shop online that my movement is being tracked much more closely. But more to the point, shopping malls are going the way of the dodo. The Mall company may find it a pretty depressing set of data. http://themoderatevoice.com/27443/economys-latest-victim-shopping-malls-are-closing/

Re:Opt-In

[Richard_at_work]

I do find the many conflicting faces of slashdot amusing - on one hand, apparently connecting to an unsecured wifi network is perfectly acceptable because it's publicly broadcasting a signal, but on the other hand tracking a publicly broadcasted signal from a mobile phone is a big no-no.

Contrast with Google WiFi Geolocation Opt-out

[QuasiSteve]

It's interesting to see the contrast in comments between this story, and the recent Google WiFi Geolocation Opt-Out story:
http://search.slashdot.org/story/11/11/15/1459208/google-to-allow-location-service-opt-out

While in the case of Google's geolocation services the common argument is that your SSID/MAC needn't be identifying and you're broadcasting it so one has no right to complain anyway... ...here it's almost the complete opposite. Here the broadcasted information is for one's own benefit (the ability to use a cell phone) and it doesn't matter that the information isn't necessarily identifying it's still evil to collect it.

This despite the SSID likely originating from a private (or business) residence, while your cellphone's signal is originating within another business' location.

Now obviously there are differences, and the people commenting may not be the same, but I wonder if what's really the difference isn't the fact that there's likely to be little benefit to somebody that cell phone signals are being tracked*, versus the major benefit of faster / less power-hungry geolocation from recording WiFi locations.

( * Supported by the notion that most people don't seem to take much issue with e.g. TomTom partnering with cell providers to detect traffic trends in order to warn users of their navigation devices/software of, among other, traffic jams - as obviously that's a major benefit to the user. )

Re:Opt-In

[0123456]

I do find the many conflicting faces of slashdot amusing

You do realise that Slashdot is a web site where thousands of different people post their opinions and not a single person, right? And that one person who thinks A is probably not the same person who things not-A?

That is completely unrelated

[_0xd0ad]

You need to just quit whining. "Black Friday" refers to Friday the 13th, or any Friday on which a catastrophe occurs. The only reason the day after Thanksgiving is called "Black Friday" is because the Philly PD started calling it that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(shopping)#Origin_of_the_term

JANUARY 1966 -- "Black Friday" is the name which the Philadelphia Police Department has given to the Friday following Thanksgiving Day. It is not a term of endearment to them. "Black Friday" officially opens the Christmas shopping season in center city, and it usually brings massive traffic jams and over-crowded sidewalks as the downtown stores are mobbed from opening to closing.