How stores use your phone’s WiFi to track your shopping habits

[dkf]

Here are some of the things the owner of a brick-and-mortar store is in a position to learn about his business these days, as Jules Polonetsky, the director of a Washington think tank, told me recently:

The average wait time at the back register is two minutes. Half of your customers have been in your store twice in a week. Ten percent of the people who come in your store never come near a register, meaning they don't buy anything. There are a lot of people not finding what they want. The big promotion on the east side entrance of your store was more successful at bringing people to purchase than the promotion on the west side of your store. Here's the hotspot in your store that draws the most users. The typical user comes in and purchases one thing. Ten percent of your users have been at more than one of your stores.

The list of insights is staggeringly specific, made possible by combining commercial ingenuity with an everyday technology that was never intended to be used this way.

Every smartphone these days comes equipped with a WiFi card. When the card is on and looking for networks to join, it's detectable by local routers. In your home, the router connects to your device, and then voila -- you have the Internet on your phone. But in a retail environment, other in-store equipment can pick up your WiFi card, learn your device's unique ID number and use it to keep tabs on that device over time as you move through the store.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/19/how-stores-use-your-phones-wifi-to-track-your-shopping-habits/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

Creepy!

[msongs]

1. the strip mine your data AND you have to pay THEM for the privilege. whatta system lol nt

[Brickbat]

2. A good reminder to turn off the wifi when out and about.

[drm604]

38. I always try to remember to do that, to save battery charge.

It wastes battery if it's constantly scanning for WiFi networks. I sometimes forget to turn it off. This gives me one more incentive to remember.

[LTR]

56. I only turn on Wi-Fi when I'm using it

It's a battery killer. Same with 3G/4G data (though I always leave this on) and GPS. It's not that I worry about anonymous data being collected, since they have no idea who I am and only have a simple MAC number. It's about wasting battery power when I'm not near a charger.

[enlightenment]

3. Want not to be tracked like an elk?

Turn off the phone unless you're using it. People treat the damned things like pacemakers.

[Logical]

12. But then no one can call you. What is the point? Unless you only need an emergency phone. nt

[enlightenment]

15. Well, I guess I see phones as a tool for me to use.

I use them - they don't use me.

[Logical]

20. LOL, ok. I use them so people can call me if they need me. And I answer them. And talk. nt

[enlightenment]

32. There we differ.

[phylny]

45. My husband says this regularly.

"My cellphone is for my convenience." So, I call him when I need him and he doesn't answer. Fair enough, it's for his convenience. Until the day he called me about ten times and I didn't answer. When I got home, he asked if my phone rang, and I said "Yes."

"Why didn't you answer?"

You know what I said in return.

[enlightenment]

47. Sounds fair to me.

On the other hand, if you regularly keep your phone on (and answer it when it rings), then it could be argued that he had a reasonable expectation that you would answer it . . .

Which is as far into a marital moment of tit for tat as I intend to get!

[phylny]

49. :) Well, he was shocked that I didn't answer it,

and I used this "teachable moment" to explain to him that since I rarely call him during the day unless I need him, it would really help if he kept his phone on and close to him.

CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED?

32+ years and if this is the worst problem, we'll be okay

[TroglodyteScholar]

51. It's simple to just disable the wifi temporarily

If the phone isn't looking for wifi networks, wifi networks aren't seeing the phone. No problem.

[Logical]

52. I agree with that! n-t

[hobbit709]

4. I use a dumbphone and it's turned OFF 90% of the time. No problemo.

[frazzled]

5. Turn your WiFi off

It's easy to just turn it on if you happen to need it.

But honestly, I am so sick of this mindless tracking of us. And I'm ready to join together with others in making a mockery of it.

I thought of this the other day. I'd been out to get a present for a friend at a department store, and on my way out had seen a display of a particular brand of shoes in the shoe department. I'm not a material girl, but I was really drooling over a pair (two styles actually) that caught my eye not just because they were beautiful and beautifully made but because they looked truly and honestly comfortable. They also cost a small fortune--more than two and a half times the cost of any pair of shoes I'd ever bought in my life. Oh well, I wasn't going to buy them anyway.

Later that afternoon, taking a break from my work, I decided to google the shoes and see if perhaps they ever went on sale anywhere. No, they do not seem ever to have been on sale anywhere. Okay, I felt better and decided I could put away my dream of these beautiful shoes forever. They were merely aspirational anyway, and really quite out of my league.

Then I went to check the news at Talking Points Memo. And there was an ad for the shoes I'd just moments before googled. This always pisses me off (TPM is one of the worst offenders on the Internet.) I mean, I just sought out these shoes myself; I didn't need to be reminded of something I was never going to get anyway.

And then I thought: They are profiling me, or at least profiling the "typical" TPM user. But it's not me. I'm honestly not the type that's going to buy a pair of $425 shoes ever. And then I thought, why not start messing with their heads and screw up their micro-targeting? Every time before I'm about to visit TPM, why not google something weird and completely out-of-character from the last thing? Combine fancy shoes with toilet seat covers; army surplus and a luxury hotel; ice-fishing gear and Twix bars; low-rent best sellers and an obscure philosophical treatise; K-Mart and Nieman Marcus one after the other?

Ugh, I hate feeling like I'm being followed and "pegged." Wait, I don't just feel it; there's proof positive every day that I am being followed.

[dkf]

8. Yup the ad following freaked me out early on.

I'm still not happy about it.

The do not follow Mac list looks good to me.

[Journeyman]

10. I use AdBlock. Don't see ads unless I want to see them . . .

Best of all, it's free. . .

[dkf]

13. That blocks ads on web pages like TPM and the google search page?

[Journeyman]

25. Everywhere. AND you can turn it off for individual websites, or universally pause it . . .

More important, in the two or more years I've used it, I haven't seen any negative effects that I can attribute to AdBlock. I use it on a Mac, running both Safari and Firefox.

Just Google "Adblock." It's a nice, ironic twist to getting it . . .

[SheilaT]

41. I use Firefox,

and when I just went to install Adblock, Firefox blocked it, although gave me the option to install it anyway. Should I? It's these sorts of things that leave me totally befuddled about how to use my computer, or what to be willing to download.

[Journeyman]

43. I've never run across that before, Sheila. . .

and I'm somewhat reluctant to advise you to go forward (I too am somewhat befuddled at times by the magic of the computer).

I don't suspect there would be a problem with going ahead and installing it (the initial block from Firefox may be something built in to the browser to make people think twice before they install items they've downloaded from the web), but you may wish to check with some other people first. Check with the Computer groups here on DU - there's one for both Macintosh and for the PC.

Good luck. If I find anything out myself, I'll send you a PM.

[SheilaT]

44. Thanks.

Maybe when I get back home I'll go ask the nice Geek Squad guys at my local Best Buy. We've been very good friends in recent weeks as both laptop and desktop computers have needed servicing.

[phylny]

46. I use Firefox, and honestly,

Adblock majorly messed up so much of my browsing, I had to get rid of it.

[SheilaT]

48. That's interesting.

I kind of think Firefox already blocks a lot of crap.

[phylny]

50. I think so too,

but it got so bad that I actually had to go back to a "clean" copy of Firefox and add things back in again.

[SheilaT]

53. Every so often I need to let experts

do that stuff for me.

As much as I love computers, I am frustrated by how unnecessarily complicated they can be to use. I want them to be at least as easy as my stick shift car, and sometimes they are not.

[LTR]

54. Ghostery is a good add-on too

I use it with ABP on Firefox. Blocks all trackers.

[reflection]

55. Ghostery is awesome.

First thing I install on all computers.

[seveneyes]

6. That MAC address will trace back to the phone origin

Possibly even the purchaser. That's life in the big city.

[DJ13]

7. If its a short shopping list, leave the phone in your car

[dkf]

9. My $600 phone in the car?

Hmm that means thieves can also figure out when you've left it in the car.

[MineralMan]

11. I suppose, but they don't know who it is who owns the phone

simply by tracking the unique ID around the store. They're monitoring traffic patterns in the store. That's very useful information for self-service retail stores. By analyzing traffic patterns they can optimize the store's design to increase sales.

Simply knowing that a phone is logged by the wife signature tells them nothing about the person carrying it. They use store loyalty cards for that. Swipe one of those, and the store knows exactly what you purchase. Now, that's useful information, which they'll use to print out coupons and other stuff to try to sell you more, or other, stuff.

I use mine, because it saves me 5 cents per gallon of gas every time I buy $50 worth of stuff at the supermarket. I don't care if they know what I buy, and I don't use those store coupons, because I buy the products I buy because I like them. I never seem to get coupons for the stuff I buy, so I don't use coupons at all.

I do use that 5 cents a gallon discount when I buy gas, though. The other day, I got 30 cents off my fuel purchase, which will last me for couple of weeks of driving. I like that. I paid under $3.00 per gallon. Yay!

[dkf]

14. Well that puts a new spin on loyalty cards.

It ties their wifi intrusion to your name. I guess that is worth a 5-10% discount.

[MineralMan]

17. They don't need wifi to track my purchases.

When the stuff I buy is rung up, it is stored with my name, via the loyalty card. That's how they use loyalty cards. It doesn't matter to me, because I don't care if they know what I buy.

The wifi thing is just for traffic pattern mapping. Some stores have RFID chips on the shopping carts to do that tracking. Others use cameras. The old method was to use human observers. But understanding the traffic patterns in retail stores has long been known as important information for store design. For example, the end caps on each aisle are stocked according to the traffic patterns. The more expensive stuff is at the ends of the busiest aisles.

Retailing is a science, and retailers are always looking for ways to understand their stores.

They can't track me with wifi, because I never have a phone or other device with me. If I did, I wouldn't care anyhow. They already know what I buy, anyhow.

I don't care. They're welcome to that information, frankly.

[dkf]

22. They can sell all that info to centralize and target specific ad strategies.

Someone out there really will know more about you than you do.

[MineralMan]

27. No doubt. Who cares?

I don't buy things based on advertising. I buy things based on my need for them, and I shop for quality and value at all times. They're welcome to sell that info to whomever they wish. It won't affect my behavior in any way.

Are you really not aware of all of this? It's been going on for a very long time. Unless you don't shop at all, and pay only with cash, your purchases are all logged and filed in databases.

It's a matter of no interest to me, because it's ubiquitous. The only interesting thing is that people aren't aware of this and are shocked and alarmed by it.

[dkf]

29. Well if you follow my posts I am still surprised by the extent of the intrusion...

Both by the government and the private sector.

Well now we know where to invest. Storage will be big.

[Zorra]

21. Unless. of course, your "pay as you go phone" is registered to a bogus name.

Something I recommend to anyone who values their privacy, and wants to fuck with those who wish to invade it.

[Jenoch]

35. We have stores with

loyalty programs which offer 5¢ off per gallon of gas, but I never settle for anything less than 20¢ off per gallon. I get plenty of coupons from various petroleum companies for 10¢ off per gallon. There is one chain of convenience stores/gas stations that accepts all coupons and on Tuesdays, they double them.

[Robb]

16. Of course, this used to be done with cameras, and human beings watching you shop.

You think department stores are laid out in some kind of haphazard way?

The worst thing I can say about this is it's eliminated a few on-site jobs in favor of a technology.

[MineralMan]

18. Precisely.

I can't imagine worrying about stuff like this. They've been watching us shop for decades.

[dkf]

19. But your MAC address is your MAC address.

No way the camera guy recognizes you and knows how many times you visited in a month.

[Logical]

23. Soon cameras will use your face anyway. No big deal. n-t

[dkf]

24. Lol so comforting!!! Thanks a lot you guys.

[Logical]

26. Sorry! :-) We can always wear a disguise!

[dkf]

28. Burka. :)

[Logical]

31. That would work!! n-t

[NYC_SKP]

36. I don't use cash and when I shop my fabric shuts down all the scanners:

ALL THE FUCKING SCANNERS CAN YOU HEAR ME!!!!11!!!

[MineralMan]

30. If such things concern you, shut off your phone when it

might be tracked. I can't really see the reason for your concern, but if it exists, you can control when your phone is on and trackable. Seems basic to me. I don't carry a phone most of the time. When I do, it's off, unless I need to use it. If I get calls, they'll be on my voice mail when I turn it back on.

I just can't go through life worrying about what retail stores are doing when I shop in them. Who cares. I'm there to buy something. When I find it, I'll take it to the check stand and leave. Retail strategies don't interest me, although I hate it when they rearrange stores I visit often. It slows me down.

[dkf]

37. It bothers me because I am addicted to technology yet don't like the feeling of intrusion.

Maybe because I'm female I've always felt more sensitive about that sort of thing. It makes me feel vulnerable.

[sendero]

33. Most phones..

.... have a pretty easy way to enable and disable the wifi. I can't think of a reason to leave your wifi on all the time unless you like charging your phone.

[dkf]

39. Ios 7 makes it much easier.

I wish we had an app that would turn it off based on location. Once I leave certain areas I have no need for wifi.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

34. They are not using mine.

I've already lost three of them. They are probably in the house somewhere, but the batteries are dead so I can't locate them by calling them. I didn't buy them. Someone gave them to me. They're inconvenient. I hate 'em.

[Raine]

40. Stores have always studied shoppers habits, now they have an easier more accurate way of finding out

what they want to know.

[SheilaT]

42. This certainly is another reason to have a stupid phone, as I

call mine.