How Target's Mobile App Uses Location Tech To Track You

An anonymous reader writes Big-box retailers are figuring out how to use mobile apps to drive in-store sales, but they're also concerned about privacy. To see how they're doing, Xconomy took Target's app for a spin on one of the busiest shopping days of the year. The app uses indoor location-mapping technology from a startup called Point Inside. The verdict? The app saved a few minutes in locating items around the store, but it would work better if it knew where shoppers (and the items on their lists) are at any time. With Apple's iBeacons set to roll out more widely, retail privacy will be a hot issue in 2015.

Comments

Privacy indépendant from beacons

[SuperKendall]

What matters is not if an app can tell where you are in the store, but if and when the app shares that information with a server. I don't care what information an application collects, if the data stays in-app.

Of course the great likelihood is that an app that collects that information will probably send that to a server, at the very least to query for specifics around you... but a smart app developer could provide a privacy option for users while still gaining benefit from iBeacons and the like.

Re:Privacy indépendant from beacons

[davester666]

These apps, fitness tracking apps, car monitoring apps, they all COULD work just fine without uploading everything to the vendor's server. But now, vendors have the belief that you didn't pay enough when you purchase merchandise from them. You need to further monetized, by selling information about you to other companies.

yea no

[Charliemopps]

There's no reason to shop at a retailer unless you're desperate and need something now. Even the more overpriced online retailers kill brick and mortar on price. Local retailers are closing left and right near me. The mall, which had a 3 lane exit built for it just a few years ago because lines to the parking lot would block the interstate around the holidays, is now a ghost town. Back in the 1990's they kicked out any retailer that wasn't trendy like The Gap or Banana republic, so the stores that made the mall interesting are gone. Radioshack is nothing more than a cellphone kiosk now. Now those interesting retailers have moved to our long vacant downtown (ironically killed off by the mall!) Those unique boutique shops are the only way retail will survive the next 5 to 10yrs and you can guarantee location tracking is the last thing on their minds.

Retailed killed itself, and this "Surveillance" is just a further example of how they just don't get it.

Re: yea no

[Charliemopps]

Obviously you haven't shopped at best buy or toys r us lately. They kill Amazon on price and selection

So Best Buys Book section is better than Amazons? And their Jewelry? Cutlery? Clothing?
Oh wait, they don't have any of that stuff... I'd better go check Toys R Us... lol

And on price? Yes, I have been to Best Buy lately... I went to get a network cable to replace a broken one. It was $29.99 for a single cable. They had much cheaper ones on their website but they're not available locally. And the cables they had at the store weren't listed on the website.

So I suspect you're comparing their websites... ok... but that's basically the same service. The store has entirely different products and different prices and it's worthless.

Re:yea no

[RabidReindeer]

There's no reason to shop at a retailer unless you're desperate and need something now

Sometimes it's actually nice to fondle the merchandise. There's only so much you can get out of an online catalog, especially since the pictures are usually pretty poor.

I was beginning to believe the Radio Shack mantra, until I wandered into my neighborhood store the other day. They had an impressive array of sensors and kits for stand-alone, Rasberry Pi, Basic Stamp and Arduino, as well as the aforementioned systems themselves. Also the LittleBits stuff, including the Korg synth.

Plus essential cables, connectors and adapters, various useful batteries for UPS's, alarm systems and Roomba.

Oh yeah. And cell phones. And a handful of TVs.

And a whole rack full of soldering irons. And the parts cases.

So they're not quite as useless as they've been made out to be.

As for price, I'm not so impoverished that getting the Low Price Always is the overriding criteria for my purchasing decisions.

Re:yea no

[Anonymous Coward]

> There's no reason to shop at a retailer unless you're desperate and need something now.

I shop brick and mortar because they take cash and they don't ask for my name, address and phone number.

Re:yea no

[Megane]

I was beginning to believe the Radio Shack mantra, until I wandered into my neighborhood store the other day. They had an impressive array of sensors and kits for stand-alone, Rasberry Pi, Basic Stamp and Arduino, as well as the aforementioned systems themselves. Also the LittleBits stuff, including the Korg synth.

They made some effort to get on the Maker bandwagon a few years ago. I think it's only now starting to pay off, where the geeks (like me) are discovering that they actually have some interesting stuff again. Sure, you'll pay a few bucks more than web-order, but you'll get it right away, even on a Sunday. But then again, there's a Fry's ten minutes from where I live, and just their components section alone puts RS to shame. Silly RS closed the two stores near me (one because the strip mall people wouldn't move their sign up into vacated spaces from stores that left), but kept the one across the street from Fry's.

omg, a store will know where I am

[alen]

Inside their store if I had installed their app to help me buy their stuff

Of course, if this was fry's telling geeks how to find their on sale hard drives faster so they can store more porn and pirated movies it would be so awesome

But this is target

Re:omg, a store will know where I am

[alen]

why would i care about Target tracking me through their app inside their store when i'm going to pay by credit card that is in my name anyway?

better they track me so they put stuff i buy up front rather than me having to walk through the whole store

Re:omg, a store will know where I am

[Macdude]

better they track me so they put stuff i buy up front rather than me having to walk through the whole store

I don't think you understand how they think, they'll put the stuff you buy at the back so that you have to walk through the entire store. In their minds the more stuff you walk past, the more likely you are to buy something on a whim. It's why the milk is always at the back of the grocery store.

Re:Privacy independant from beacons

[BarbaraHudson]

Welcome to the end of the personal computer era. In the future, none of your programs will be able to run without connecting to a server somewhere, sometime.

retail privacy will be a hot issue in 2015

[koan]

Shut your phone off and pay cash... you fucking sheep.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yet the article and the conclusion is that this app doesn't track you because of hyper sensitivity to privacy,

The problem here is that it is unknowable. Even if they promise not to track people they will always qualify that promise in two ways:

(1) They reserve the right to unilaterally change their mind at any point in the future as long as they publish some fine-print somewhere in a corner of their website
(2) They still track people, but they claim to anonymize the data. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that there is no such thing as anonymized tracking. At the very best it is just tracking that hasn't be de-anonymized yet.

It is like all those web trackers that let you "opt out" when in fact you can't opt out of being tracked, you can only opt out of having them rub your face in the fact that they are tracking you.

Re: WTF?

[Jason Levine]

Maybe he was talking about IKEA. Those stores seem like they are designed after mazes. Whenever I'm in there, I always get lost and can't find my way out. Every other store, though, no problem.

XPrivacy (nt)

[allo]

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