Google Is Testing a Program That Tracks Your Purchases In the Real World

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday November 7, 2013 @05:26PM from the show-us-what-your-bought dept.

cold fjord writes "Business Insider reports, Google is beta-testing a program that tracks users' purchasing habits by registering brick-and-mortar store visits via smartphones, according to a report from Digiday. Google can access user data via Android apps or their Apple iOS apps, like Google search, Gmail, Chrome, or Google Maps. If a customer is using these apps while he shops or has them still running in the background, Google's new program pinpoints the origin of the user data and determines if the customer is in a place of business."

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Misleading title... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-07 17:33 · Score: 4, Informative

Nowhere in the article does it say it can track what you buy, there's no way an app can track purchases you made outside of your phone unless it's somehow linked to your bank/credit card account... this is just to track where you were. Basically, Google is stalking you, nothing new there.