It’s well
known that advertisers track our browsing histories on the web to better target
us with so much ads, but they’re increasingly moving towards tracking our
locations too, because the history of your physical movements can be just as
valuable to an advertiser as your virtual ones. Now all thanks to the security firm, AVG Technologies who's
challenging that business model with a free smartphone app that blocks WiFi
location tracking, even borrowing the “Do Not Track” movement label to name the “DNT” feature it’s
adding to its PrivacyFix app for Android.
The update
to AVG’s free app, being launched on Tuesday, is the first of its kind to be
offered by an established security company and lets Android users block
location tracking by Wi-Fi networks in retail stores or public venues. Till now
PrivacyFix let users manage their privacy settings across various sites, but
with the update it will now block Android smartphones from transmitting
the unique code known as their MAC address, which allows retailers and
advertisers to track the physical movements of shoppers in order to run tallies
on visitor numbers or optimize their advertising.
Android has
a permission structure for determining how apps will use a person’s
location data, but WiFi tracking allows a degree of
circumvention around that framework, so that companies can
compile a history of your movements in public places. “Because MAC addresses
also are routinely collected in apps, your location history can potentially be
matched with other information about you, including your identity,” according to source.
Location
tracking is becoming increasingly important to the data analytics companies who
count advertisers and app developers among their clients. Historical data about
a person’s location — effectively the GPS signature they leave on a map
over time — is also more valuable to these clients than just knowing where a
person is at any one point.
The Availability of the App
AVG’s app
isn’t yet available for iOS devices, meaning it won’t block Apple AAPL +1.18%’s
new iBeacon proximity technology (details about this later). Apple revealed iBeacon earlier this year with
the launch of its new, iOS 7 mobile
platform, and it effectively lets one Apple device send push notifications to
other iOS devices within a certain vicinity. The idea is that retailers will be
able to send details about promotions over WiFi, directly to consumers’
iPhones. Apple recently began using iBeacon in its own stores and Macy’s was
reportedly the first retailer to
trial the technology.
“We will see
more and more stores adopt iBeacon technology [next year],” says Puneet Mehta,
co-founder and CEO of MyCityWay, which works with brands like MasterCard MA +0.05% and BMW to market
to customers through their smartphones. iBeacon will be able to, for
instance, tell consumers in a clothing store that a sweater on their
digital wish list is on the second floor, Mehta says. They’ll receive
“personalized deals based on their past purchases and preferences, loyalty
level, and propensity to buy or share.” Therefore making live much easier...
Though this
would seem useful for both consumers and retailers, AVG’s privacy advocates say
that there needs to be more transparency on the part of brand and data
analytics companies before consumers allow such tracking. “The danger we
face with applications and any of these things in general is there’s no context
around what you’re doing on that device,” says Siobhan MacDermott, chief
policy officer for AVG. “There’s a danger of profiling people in general.”
AVG’s app
will block location tracking by automatically suspending a smartphone’s WiFi
when its user is out and about, and will only reconnect to pre-set trusted
Wi-Fi networks like their home or office.
If
anything, says Brock, “[it] helps with battery life. He said.
All thanks to AVG for making the move to protect our presence from spies...:)
