When the FTC recently cracked down on a vendor that tracks shoppers’ movements via their mobile devices and sells the data to retailers, it could have made a statement about what limits and notifications need to be in place. Instead, the FTC, as is its tradition, focused on a narrow phrasing issue, while buying into industry marketing arguments that are truly misleading and dangerous.

Mobile tracking — especially as those results are integrated with other data sources — is arguably the largest potential advance in retailers’ attempts to understand (and to then influence) shopper behaviors. It literally can provide a record of every place shoppers visit, how long they stay and where they stand and for how long. If that data is combined with POS data, store security and even parking lot cameras that capture license plates, the possibilities are limitless. Let’s say that the mobile device is seen approaching register 15 at 2:09 p.m. and stays there for three minutes. It’s not that difficult to look up the transactions at that moment and make a pretty good identification of that shopper.

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