Big Brother is watching.. Malls to track shopper's cell phones

[Sherman A1]

Starting on Black Friday and running through the entire shopping season, the Promenade Temecula shopping mall in southern California and Short Pump Town Center shopping mall in Richmond, Virginia plan to track customers locations within the mall by monitoring cell phone signals as reported by CNN earlier today. The malls intend to follow the path of each shopper and collect data to understand typical shopping patterns. While the malls claim that the data collected will be anonymous, mall officials will be able to tell which portion of the mall is unpopular, the amount of time that people spend inside a particular store and which stores compliment each other based off customer behavior.
The malls do plan to alert customers of the tracking program and encourage shoppers to turn off the cell phone while shopping.


http://news.yahoo.com/malls-plan-track-shopper-location...

[hobbit709]

1. Not that I'd be caught dead in a mall at any time of year.

and about 90% of the time my phone isn't even turned on.

[NJCher]

13. they'd have trouble with me, too

Ninety per cent of the time I don't know where mine is.


Cher

[Earth_First]

2. Man if I lived in those areas and could get 10 friends together...

It'd be worth the waste of half a day.

[pipi_k]

12. That would be the biggest hoot!

Totally worth the time

:7

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Is merely turning off your cell phone sufficient to stop tracking?

I recall reading that even when the cell phone is 'off,' some circuits stay energized that allow tracking. If anyone is truly concerned about this, I recommend removing the battery as well.

[FarCenter]

8. In a previous thread, a poster reported that 2 layers of aluminum foil will stop transmissions

The frequently concerned should buy a Faraday bag.

http://faraday-bags.com/

[Sherman A1]

15. Interesting.

something to look into.

[PeaceNikki]

16. Also don't forget to adequately cover your head

:tinfoilhat:

[inademv]

4. I picked up a habbit back in 2000

When I'm not using my cell phone or not expecting a call, I keep it turned off. I suppose that strategy might be a bit less useful for people who need to be reachable more often than not but I guess one could keep it on while at home or work.

[Tippy]

5. You can be tracked even if your phone is turned off

I am not 100% sure even removing the batter would do it...

[Duer 157099]

17. I'm 99.9% sure that removing the battery will do it

Hell, many phones have trouble getting a signal under the best of conditions, I cannot imagine a phone that could work without a battery.

[Motown_Johnny]

6. Big Brother was the government watching people inside their homes

This is not Big Brother and mislabeling it as such does more harm than good

[Magoo48]

11. Call it what you will, it is fucked up.

[Sherman A1]

14. You can split hairs here if you like, however

is there not a cozy relationship between Corporate "People" and our Government?

[lunatica]

7. So fight back. Flash mob the malls

Make sure you make the call outside the mall and everyone meet inside the mall to do whatever. Maybe just run through it to create false patterns.

Shit. If I just thought of that there are hundreds who're thinking the same thing just as quickly.

[rhett o rick]

9. I dont do malls. They are so last decade. nm

[lunatica]

10. I haven't been in a mall in years

Because I don't do holidays.

[Duer 157099]

18. Yeah, it's too bad people are invisible

Cuz otherwise they could use, ya know, something like videotape to track patterns.

There's something nefarious going on when they want to use cell phone signals, it's more than just tracking traffic patterns. It's personal.

[Sherman A1]

19. Agreed

There is the old story of the grocer who placed bins of peanuts at spots through his store for people to enjoy. He would then look at the peanut shells on the floor to see which areas had seen higher traffic than others.