What Secrets Your Phone Is Sharing About You?

[Truthseeker420]

Fan Zhang, the owner of Happy Child, a trendy Asian restaurant in downtown Toronto, knows that 170 of his customers went clubbing in November. He knows that 250 went to the gym that month, and that 216 came in from Yorkville, an upscale neighborhood.

And he gleans this information without his customers' knowledge, or ever asking them a single question.

Mr. Zhang is a client of Turnstyle Solutions Inc., a year-old local company that has placed sensors in about 200 businesses within a 0.7 mile radius in downtown Toronto to track shoppers as they move in the city.

The sensors, each about the size of a deck of cards, follow signals emitted from Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones. That allows them to create portraits of roughly 2 million people's habits as they have gone about their daily lives, traveling from yoga studios to restaurants, to coffee shops, sports stadiums, hotels, and nightclubs.

"Instead of offering a general promotion that may or may not hit a nerve, we can promote specifically to the customer's taste," says Mr. Zhang. He recently emblazoned workout tank-tops with his restaurant's logo, based on the data about his customers' gym visits.

Turnstyle is at the forefront of a movement to track consumers who are continuously broadcasting their location from phones. Other startups, such as San Francisco-based Euclid Analytics Inc., use sensors to analyze foot-traffic patterns, largely within an individual retailer's properties to glean insight about customer behavior.

Their success speaks to the growing value of location data. Verizon Wireless last year began crunching its own location information from customers to help retailers see which neighborhoods shoppers arrived from or limited information about their habits, such as restaurants they drive past. Apple Inc. AAPL +1.67% recently released its iBeacon technology, which can be integrated into sensors to read customer's smartphone signals in brick-and-mortar stores.

What Secrets Your Phone Is Sharing About You - WSJ.com

I can't believe this is legal.

 

[Sunshine]

Fan Zhang, the owner of Happy Child, a trendy Asian restaurant in downtown Toronto, knows that 170 of his customers went clubbing in November. He knows that 250 went to the gym that month, and that 216 came in from Yorkville, an upscale neighborhood.

And he gleans this information without his customers' knowledge, or ever asking them a single question.

Mr. Zhang is a client of Turnstyle Solutions Inc., a year-old local company that has placed sensors in about 200 businesses within a 0.7 mile radius in downtown Toronto to track shoppers as they move in the city.

The sensors, each about the size of a deck of cards, follow signals emitted from Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones. That allows them to create portraits of roughly 2 million people's habits as they have gone about their daily lives, traveling from yoga studios to restaurants, to coffee shops, sports stadiums, hotels, and nightclubs.

"Instead of offering a general promotion that may or may not hit a nerve, we can promote specifically to the customer's taste," says Mr. Zhang. He recently emblazoned workout tank-tops with his restaurant's logo, based on the data about his customers' gym visits.

Turnstyle is at the forefront of a movement to track consumers who are continuously broadcasting their location from phones. Other startups, such as San Francisco-based Euclid Analytics Inc., use sensors to analyze foot-traffic patterns, largely within an individual retailer's properties to glean insight about customer behavior.

Their success speaks to the growing value of location data. Verizon Wireless last year began crunching its own location information from customers to help retailers see which neighborhoods shoppers arrived from or limited information about their habits, such as restaurants they drive past. Apple Inc. AAPL +1.67% recently released its iBeacon technology, which can be integrated into sensors to read customer's smartphone signals in brick-and-mortar stores.

What Secrets Your Phone Is Sharing About You - WSJ.com

I can't believe this is legal.

Do you have a Kroger card? All that is about is tracking what you buy. I worked with a doctor who would not allow his wife to use one for that reason. I, myself, have sold out for the few dollars it saves me. Most large chain stores like Kroger have some kind of purchase tracking. This is nothing new. The only thing new about it is the method.

 

[Truthseeker420]

Fan Zhang, the owner of Happy Child, a trendy Asian restaurant in downtown Toronto, knows that 170 of his customers went clubbing in November. He knows that 250 went to the gym that month, and that 216 came in from Yorkville, an upscale neighborhood.

And he gleans this information without his customers' knowledge, or ever asking them a single question.

Mr. Zhang is a client of Turnstyle Solutions Inc., a year-old local company that has placed sensors in about 200 businesses within a 0.7 mile radius in downtown Toronto to track shoppers as they move in the city.

The sensors, each about the size of a deck of cards, follow signals emitted from Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones. That allows them to create portraits of roughly 2 million people's habits as they have gone about their daily lives, traveling from yoga studios to restaurants, to coffee shops, sports stadiums, hotels, and nightclubs.

"Instead of offering a general promotion that may or may not hit a nerve, we can promote specifically to the customer's taste," says Mr. Zhang. He recently emblazoned workout tank-tops with his restaurant's logo, based on the data about his customers' gym visits.

Turnstyle is at the forefront of a movement to track consumers who are continuously broadcasting their location from phones. Other startups, such as San Francisco-based Euclid Analytics Inc., use sensors to analyze foot-traffic patterns, largely within an individual retailer's properties to glean insight about customer behavior.

Their success speaks to the growing value of location data. Verizon Wireless last year began crunching its own location information from customers to help retailers see which neighborhoods shoppers arrived from or limited information about their habits, such as restaurants they drive past. Apple Inc. AAPL +1.67% recently released its iBeacon technology, which can be integrated into sensors to read customer's smartphone signals in brick-and-mortar stores.

What Secrets Your Phone Is Sharing About You - WSJ.com

I can't believe this is legal.

Do you have a Kroger card? All that is about is tracking what you buy. I worked with a doctor who would not allow his wife to use one for that reason. I, myself, have sold out for the few dollars it saves me. Most large chain stores like Kroger have some kind of purchase tracking. This is nothing new. The only thing new about it is the method.

I believ Kroger was rhe first to come out with these cards. I remember I used to refuse to use the card.

But these people are stealing your signal without your knowledge.

 

[Sunshine]

I can't believe this is legal.

Do you have a Kroger card? All that is about is tracking what you buy. I worked with a doctor who would not allow his wife to use one for that reason. I, myself, have sold out for the few dollars it saves me. Most large chain stores like Kroger have some kind of purchase tracking. This is nothing new. The only thing new about it is the method.

I believ Kroger was rhe first to come out with these cards. I remember I used to refuse to use the card.

But these people are stealing your signal without your knowledge.

We all know that if we use public access media like wifi that others can see what we are doing. It's not new. And it's a no brainer. If you don't want them seeing what you do, don't use public access media. DUH.

 

[Truthseeker420]

Do you have a Kroger card? All that is about is tracking what you buy. I worked with a doctor who would not allow his wife to use one for that reason. I, myself, have sold out for the few dollars it saves me. Most large chain stores like Kroger have some kind of purchase tracking. This is nothing new. The only thing new about it is the method.

I believ Kroger was rhe first to come out with these cards. I remember I used to refuse to use the card.

But these people are stealing your signal without your knowledge.

We all know that if we use public access media like wifi that others can see what we are doing. It's not new. And it's a no brainer. If you don't want them seeing what you do, don't use public access media. DUH.

Public access is different from my private cell phone.