Why Tesco might be offering free in-store wi-fi: To track you?

Tesco have announced that from today customers in Tesco’s Extra stores will have access to free wifi:

From Aberdeen to Bournemouth, customers shopping in any of Tesco’s Extra stores will now have free, unlimited access by signing up with their Clubcard number. Those who do not have a Clubcard are able to use the service for 15 minutes free every 24 hours.

The signing up with a Clubcard number is really interesting. Not only will Tesco be able to track what you buy at the till, but having worked out the technicalities of in-store navigation using the triangulation of  wi-fi  routers they could potentially be tracking where you go in-store … or am I just being too suspicious. 

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comment 2 comments
  • Geoff

    Interesting. For many reasons, I don’t see the location feature being useful for customers (interference and poor database management will probably make it a frustrating experience; it’s hard to shop and study your phone). It could be very useful for Tesco to see where you go though, so perhaps they’ll work out some way to turn it into a game (treasure hunt?).
    Meanwhile, they could be monitoring your internet traffic (Google search ‘price of monkey nuts asda’) to see what items they need to compete better on (or compete less on) and perhaps even inadvertently snoop on more private stuff.
    I’ll pass.

    • Martin Hawksey

      Hi Geoff – yes it was more you login to check something then Tesco might be able to track you around the store that concerned me (a number of companies like http://www.pathintelligence.com/ specialise in that sort of thing).
      Martin

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