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Store Is Tracking Your Cell

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posted on Jul, 15 2013 @ 05:20 PM
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Saw similar ones in search, but they were old and had less info. If it is a repeat, mods please do your thing.


Source


Like dozens of other brick-and-mortar retailers, Nordstrom wanted to learn more about its customers — how many came through the doors, how many were repeat visitors — the kind of information that e-commerce sites like Amazon have in spades. So last fall the company started testing new technology that allowed it to track customers’ movements by following the Wi-Fi signals from their smartphones.

But when Nordstrom posted a sign telling customers it was tracking them, shoppers were unnerved. “We did hear some complaints,” said Tara Darrow, a spokeswoman for the store. Nordstrom ended the experiment in May, she said, in part because of the comments.

Nordstrom’s experiment is part of a movement by retailers to gather data about in-store shoppers’ behavior and moods, using video surveillance and signals from their cellphones and apps to learn information as varied as their sex, how many minutes they spend in the candy aisle and how long they look at merchandise before buying it. All sorts of retailers — including national chains, like Family Dollar, Cabela’s and Mothercare, a British company, and specialty stores like Benetton and Warby Parker — are testing these technologies and using them to decide on matters like changing store layouts and offering customized coupons.

But while consumers seem to have no problem with cookies, profiles and other online tools that let e-commerce sites know who they are and how they shop, some bristle at the physical version, at a time when government surveillance — of telephone calls, Internet activity and Postal Service deliveries — is front and center because of the leaks by Edward J. Snowden.

“Way over the line,” one consumer posted to Facebook in response to a local news story about Nordstrom’s efforts at some of its stores. Nordstrom says the counts were made anonymous. Technology specialists, though, say the tracking is worrisome. “The idea that you’re being stalked in a store is, I think, a bit creepy, as opposed to, it’s only a cookie — they don’t really know who I am,” said Robert Plant, a computer information systems professor at the University of Miami School of Business Administration, noting that consumers can rarely control or have access to this data. Some consumers wonder how the information is used.

“The creepy thing isn’t the privacy violation, it’s how much they can infer,” said Bradley Voytek, a neuroscientist who had stopped in at Philz Coffee in Berkeley, Calif. Philz uses technology from Euclid Analytics, of Palo Alto, Calif., the company that worked on the Nordstrom experiment, to measure the signals between a smartphone and a Wi-Fi antenna to count how many people walk by a store and how many enter.


Even better...

The store can also recognize returning shoppers, because mobile devices send unique identification codes when they search for networks. That means stores can now tell how repeat customers behave and the average time between visits. RetailNext also uses data to map customers’ paths; perhaps the shopper is 70 percent likely to go right immediately, or 14 percent likely to linger at a display, Mr. Callan said.

Brickstream uses video information to watch shoppers. The company, based near Atlanta, sells a $1,500 stereoscopic camera that separates adults from children, and counts people in different parts of a store to determine which aisles are popular and how many cash registers to open.

“Watching where people go in a store is like watching how they looked at a second or third Web page” on an online retailer, said Ralph Crabtree, Brickstream’s chief technical officer. Cameras have become so sophisticated, with sharper lenses and data-processing, that companies can analyze what shoppers are looking at, and even what their mood is.

For example, Realeyes, based in London, which analyzes facial cues for responses to online ads, monitors shoppers’ so-called happiness levels in stores and their reactions at the register. Synqera, a start-up in St. Petersburg, Russia, is selling software for checkout devices or computers that tailors marketing messages to a customer’s gender, age and mood, measured by facial recognition.


So, not long from now, going shopping will be like being under a WAY bigger microscope than ever before. Yay.



posted on Jul, 15 2013 @ 06:15 PM
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Fortunately I do most of my shopping online, but if I were to shop at Nordstoms I would leave my phone in the car.

I actually feel like getting rid of my cell phone sometimes. Who needs a national ID when everyone can be identified and geolocated by a device they purchase and choose to carry?



posted on Jul, 15 2013 @ 06:42 PM
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reply to post by Metallicus
 


Well not every body has a cell phone,got rid of mine in "09". Don't miss it one bit,



posted on Jul, 15 2013 @ 07:44 PM
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Originally posted by Metallicus
Fortunately I do most of my shopping online, but if I were to shop at Nordstoms I would leave my phone in the car.

I actually feel like getting rid of my cell phone sometimes. Who needs a national ID when everyone can be identified and geolocated by a device they purchase and choose to carry?


I guarantee you are tracked more online than Nordstrom ever did in their stores. Trust me, I'm in advertising.



posted on Jul, 15 2013 @ 08:05 PM
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They probably make money selling video of shoppers habits to research companies than products they sell. Probably outsourced to national security monitors somewhere too, with a plainclothes agent on-call. I know the McDonalds have them, the WalMarts have them. Just show up one day, find something unusual (like a rack of knives) and stare at it while in range of a camera, buy something with a gift card and it's like summoning a genie where your three wishes are 1)I wish this spy state would go away; 2)I wish this cop-type had better things to do than scrutinize my person and my property; 3)I wish I was afforded the dignity and respect in the honor system.

And they wonder, how come consumer morale is deflated? They want to be free from invisible judgment calls from unseen consciousnesses. Not habit watched like a rat.



posted on Jul, 16 2013 @ 12:10 PM
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reply to post by Metallicus
 


I too sometimes just want to get rid of my smartphone. It's getting harder to decide whether to view it as a convenience or a tracking device.



posted on Jul, 16 2013 @ 12:11 PM
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I hope they store the info about me when I walk up to a product, see how much it costs and what it is supposed to do and mutter to myself " a rag and some water will do that trick too for free " and take note.

track my cell phone, it will just tell you your products suck.



posted on Jul, 16 2013 @ 12:14 PM
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Originally posted by Gu1tarJohn


I too sometimes just want to get rid of my smartphone. It's getting harder to decide whether to view it as a convenience or a tracking device.



I did.



Land line, or I borrow a phone to make a call.




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