The FTC has managed to take legal action against a Nomi Technologies startup, which trapped the Americans' moves through the Wi-Fi brands of their smartphones.
The FTC regulator has published one PDF at the end of 2013 that said the company Nomi Technologies infringed the law without informing buyers in advance.
Espionage service of Nomi is used by retail chains (usually Super Markets) to analyze some data. Managers were able in all stores using Nomi Wi-Fi hotspots to locate all customers who had mobile devices with them, and record their location.
Buyers (customers) are identified by the MAC addresses of their gadgets. The points which gathered most of the data from the shelves. aisles, or even outdoors, have been extremely useful to store managers, telling them how long customers spend in stores, who stop by, and the number of people who walk in front of a window without entering.
From January to September of 2013, Nomi's technology garnered recordings of nine million mobile devices. Until October of the same year, the company had 45 customers using technology.
Nomi says it tries to anonymize clients by passing MAC addresses through a hash function, but because each address always produces the same hash, each buyer is more or less unique to the company's database.
Nomi reported that she accepted the request from the FTC, claiming that an opt-out mechanism is needed for those who still believe that privacy exists on this planet (!).
The FTC claims in its official complaint that Americans should be able to choose and opt out of spying lest they face a by clicking here of Nomi Technologies that contains the MAC addresses of their devices.
"Οι πράξεις και οι πρακτικές της Nomi, συνιστούν αθέμιτες ή δόλιες ενέργειες και πρακτικές που επηρεάζουν τις εμπορικές συναλλαγές κατά παράβαση του άρθρου 5(α) του νόμου της Ομοσπονδιακής Επιτροπής Εμπορίου," αναφέρει η FTC.
