Tuesday, November 24, 2015

opt out of wifi tracking in your favorite stores

If you don't already know it, every time you walk into a modern store, if your smartphone or tablet wifi or bluetooth is turned on, the multiple wifi antennas in the store can identify you (the name you use on the device), your physical network address (read more below), and can triangulate where you are in the store,  whether you went left or right (which displays were more attractive?), and how long you lingered at each place.

http://smart-places.org/mobile-location-analytics-opt-out/about-mobile-location-analytics-technology/

If you want to see sample reports here are https://fpf.org/2013/10/22/sample-mla-reports/

In theory, you can elect to opt-out of their tracking, if you submit your MAC address (info on the site):
http://smart-places.org/

But the best thing is probably to simply turn off your wifi and bluetooth radios unless you are actually using them.  Otherwise, your information is already being collected, and you are counting on every participating vendor to scrub you out of their databases with the information YOU are giving them in the opt-out pages.  Hmm.  Really.

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