Source.

...except that I DO listen to my iPhone's list of podcasts using Bluetooth-connected headphones, so rats!

To be sure: it appears that I haven't experienced ANY level of in-store tracking. I have NOT yet received any txts or calls or ads interrupting my web-browsing while shopping, but I think this is due to:

1) my not doing ANY web-browsing on my phone (well, aside from that period when I was hospitalized, and when I am at home I only do web-browsing on my MBP. I actually must go through some number of steps to allow me to use Safari on my iPhone when I am away from home), and

2) my not having sent out many txts aside from a relative few to family members (I literally have one txt sent to a friend who isn't a family member, and I get txts from T-Mobile--my phone service provider--which has been MOSTLY messages saying that my monthly bill has been sent to my credit card company, and the rest are notices that the T-Mobile phone apps have been updated), and

3) my VERY limited time spent doing supermarket or department store shopping (I USUALLY have a specific target item to get, and am not prone to be distracted from that, so my shopping is more in-and-out rather than any sort of browsing where I could be tracked lingering at some display or item), and

4) my not being in any sort of desirable customer demographic (non-white male in his 60s with practically no web presence except maybe for here at MAF).

Has anyone here experience such targeted marketing while out shopping?

I've never had that happen to me, Ever. And i spend a lot of time shopping. That also seems to be an opinion piece, and i didn't make it all the way to the end, but it seems more like a scare tactic and not an actual thing.

it's not so much the bluetooth.. but if you have your location ON and maps has access...
I have a 1+ 6T phone.. and when i set it up. i didn't set up everything.
went to Aldi .. paid cash... went home... text popped up on phone... How would you rate your trip to Aldi?"

it was location and maps that did it. BT wasn't on.

i always keep bluetooth off, in the probably mistaken belief that doing so conserves a bit of power

I have a BT enabled car stereo, so my BT is always on.

Bluetooth is on because I have a smartwatch. I had to lock down Google maps because it was very aggressive with the location based ads though.

Do those Faraday pouches I see advertised work? Seems like a good idea but will a Faraday cage work if it is not grounded?

so you have maps and location on..... both battery burners....

but you want to hide the phone electronically...so you want to carry it in a faraday cage.

and complain your battery runs low all the time.

why not turn off maps and location unless you really need them.
and not spend the money on a cage of snake oil.

I have so many bluetooth devices (nine that I can think of off the top of my head) that there's no way I could maintain usability with my phone if I turned it off.

BT is fine.. it's the location and maps that sells your location and presents you with the ads

Pariah posted:

Do those Faraday pouches I see advertised work? Seems like a good idea but will a Faraday cage work if it is not grounded?

Wellll...a Faraday cage does NOT have to be grounded to work at all, it just would not be as effective as a well-grounded one.

On the other hand, you want to put a mobile phone inside one of these?

I suppose there are people (like me) who have very low expectations of getting any incoming calls, and (like me) are very irritated by even the few junk calls that do come in. On the other hand there are those UNexpected happenings where you DO want to get THAT call--your child is sick at school and must be picked up, a friend whose car died and needs a quick trip to some place, a death or significant injury in the family--so are you sure you want to block out everything incoming?

macnuke posted:

BT is fine.. it's the location and maps that sells your location and presents you with the ads

Um, you didn't read the article, did you? Because you would learn that Bluetooth is being added to the features which give away your location not the general way that maps and location services do, but with relatively fine precision that--given enough tracking--could reveal that you had slowed down significantly when passing that display for a given product that MAYBE shows that you had some interest in it. Of course they cannot tell if your reaction was "Hmm, that's interesting" or "GAWD, what an eye-catching mess!"

Do NOT put a phone in a Faraday cage with its radios on. Trust me, the battery will be dead in about an hour. We have (more or less) this setup in some of the secure areas where I work, as you are required to keep your mobile devices in metal lockers outside the work area. The newer ones have charging ports inside to counter this, but the older ones are well known to leave your phone drained by the time you get back.

I did read the article.
I just don't have Bt searching all the time either.

DEyncourt posted:

Pariah posted:

Do those Faraday pouches I see advertised work? Seems like a good idea but will a Faraday cage work if it is not grounded?

Wellll...a Faraday cage does NOT have to be grounded to work at all, it just would not be as effective as a well-grounded one.

On the other hand, you want to put a mobile phone inside one of these?

I suppose there are people (like me) who have very low expectations of getting any incoming calls, and (like me) are very irritated by even the few junk calls that do come in. On the other hand there are those UNexpected happenings where you DO want to get THAT call--your child is sick at school and must be picked up, a friend whose car died and needs a quick trip to some place, a death or significant injury in the family--so are you sure you want to block out everything incoming?

I was just curious, really.
I never have BT on, the couple of apps I allow access to my location are restricted to when I am using the app.
Would this beacons show up as a BT device on your phone or are they stealth? I basically know nothing about BT as I have never owned a BT device.

Just have every app set up to allow find location only while using.

Pariah posted:

DEyncourt posted:

Pariah posted:

Do those Faraday pouches I see advertised work? Seems like a good idea but will a Faraday cage work if it is not grounded?

Wellll...a Faraday cage does NOT have to be grounded to work at all, it just would not be as effective as a well-grounded one.

On the other hand, you want to put a mobile phone inside one of these?

I suppose there are people (like me) who have very low expectations of getting any incoming calls, and (like me) are very irritated by even the few junk calls that do come in. On the other hand there are those UNexpected happenings where you DO want to get THAT call--your child is sick at school and must be picked up, a friend whose car died and needs a quick trip to some place, a death or significant injury in the family--so are you sure you want to block out everything incoming?

I was just curious, really.
I never have BT on, the couple of apps I allow access to my location are restricted to when I am using the app.
Would this beacons show up as a BT device on your phone or are they stealth? I basically know nothing about BT as I have never owned a BT device.

As I understand it BT is a promiscuous system. Any nearby BT device will inquire with the equivalent of "Hi! I'm BT device 'Bob Smith's MacBook Pro'. Do you want to hook up?" in order to determine if any devices within its range want to get connected via BT (even if most of the time the answer is "no").

On whether or not you can identify the inquiring BT devices, that depends. Perhaps it will be set up with an ID which will clearly identify itself like "JC Penney Hardware Department beacon #2", but for such marketing purposes as outlined in the linked article I'm betting that most such BT tracking devices will have more obscure BT identifiers.

With your phone's BT being off, you don't have to worry since your phone doesn't exist as far as Bluetooth is concerned.