This is a post I wrote on my Tumblr just before Black Friday.  It though, like everything else here, is awesome, and so I'm sharing it with you.  This one will kinda make you think!

So two malls this year, one in California and one in Virginia, are going to be using technology to track cell phones in their malls this year in an effort to get shopping pattern information.  Questions they hope to answer are “How many shoppers who go to Nordstrom also go to Starbucks” and “Are there any areas in the mall that people don’t really go to?”  I thought I’d talk about this because I don’t only talk about States I think we should sell or stupid phrases, I also talk about serious things, serious things in awesome awesome ways.
First, malls have been doing similar things for years.  They have watched where customers go and recorded places customers go.  So this really isn’t anything new.  What is new is the way they are doing it.  This technology chooses a phones unique ID, then tracks it with antenna located throughout the mall.  It essentially works similarly to how a cellphones location is triangulated by those cool detectives on Law & Order SVU.  Basically, Ice-T is watching where you shop.  Better buy him something nice.
So is this an invasion of privacy?  The malls, of course, would say no.  As I mentioned above, they have been doing this same thing for years and people have never objected.  Hell, most of the time they don’t even know they are being watched and recorded.  At least in this instance they are being told via signs throughout the mall and at store entrances.  But there is something disturbing about knowing that the malls are accessing our personal cellphones which contains pictures of our kids, and for you sexters out there, genitalia, in addition to messages to loved ones and their contact information, to track us.
For those of you who are disturbed by that, the malls will tell you you don’t have to take part in it, and simply turning off your cellphone will make it so you can’t be tracked.  Which is all fine and dandy, but what if I want to call a loved one.  Or call an ambulance because someone has beaten me with a baseball bat to get, well, a baseball bat for pennies on the dollar?  (It is Black Friday).  Or, heaven forbid, there is a family emergency suddenly.  I can no longer be reached simply because I don’t want to be tracked?  That hardly seems fair.  Though, it’s pretty similar to the federal government saying to our youth, “You don’t have to sign up for select service crap, it is your right not to.  Of course, if you don’t, enjoy paying for college out of your own pocket asshole.  Either that or you can hope to get that greeter job at Wal-Mart and maybe move up.”
On the flip side of that though, you are going to a private business, a mall.  They should in theory have the right to watch what you do in their mall and use that information to try to make their business more efficient.  If no one goes to Orange Julius, maybe they should move that out of there and get a new store in there.  (I used Orange Julius as an example because of course people go there, that place is delicious.  If you disagree with me, stop reading this because I don’t like you anymore and don’t want my wisdom to benefit you anymore.)  And at least with the mall doing it this way, you no longer have people watching you without you knowing it.  PLUS, as the article points out, online stores do the same thing but in a much more invasive way.  They track what you buy and what you look at, then give the information to advertisers to better target ads at you.  Though, that technology is slightly flawed as Facebook thinks I’m Republican, Twitter thinks I’m Democrat and clearly I am just borderline insane.  (I know, I know, there is no borderline about it.)
So is this an invasion of privacy, or is this a kosher move on the part of malls?  That’ll have to be your call.  Just, if you don’t want to be tracked, remember you can’t actually make a call cause your cellphone has to be off.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/22/technology/malls_track_cell_phones_black_friday/index.htm