Spy Review

For any customer oriented business, market research is important because it allows them to tailor their products to their customers and increase their sales; today, businesses are increasingly using more high-tech means to try and get a better understanding of their custmers and their buying habits.

This is an interestig news about how a few shops are now using a high tech device that tracks customers via their mobile phones. The technology is now being used at Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth along with one other shopping centre and three more will be beginning shortly. However, it is causing a bit of consternation amongst shoppers because they are worried their privacy might be violated as a business might smeehow somehow get access to details that are strictly confidential.

But there is nothing to really worry about privacy wise as the information that is received is only a signal that allows the device to know what stores you enter, how long you were in the shopping centre, and the path you took to leave the store. This information allows shopping centers the chance to learn which stores are the most popular, how many customers are in the store during what hours, and how many are in the store close to closing. This information not only helps the owners of the shopping centre, but also will in fact aid consumers. With this information, the store owners will learn if they need to stay open longer, be beside a different store, or have access to restrooms close by.

The device will receive a signal from the mobile phone, whether in use or not, due to the fact the phone sends signals to the parent company every few seconds, along with the EMEI code of the phone. The EMEI code will allow the shopping centers to know the country from which the phone was purchased, thus helping them cater to foreign consumers if needed. No information about the person that owns the phone is transmitted.

The only effect this will have on customers is that the shopping centre will learn more about the shopping habits of their clientele but will not be able to know which person bought what. The information will be used for marketing purposes to aid in customer satisfaction.

However, this is not the only type of ’spying’ that is going on in the quest to provide more relevant and targetted ads. Some Internet service providers have reportedly been secretly monitoring the use of some of their customers both here and America. For example, BT recently said they covertly tracked the usage of up to 36,000 of their broadband users, able to track all the pages they were visiting. Their argument was that it was for the purpose of delivering more related ads based on the content these cusomers were visiting and therefore be highly specific with those ads. However, this has received a bad rap among both the public and Internet and broadband watchdogs, who say it was breaching privacy.