The whole point of online tech companies monitoring us is to try and get an idea of what we’re doing in real life. Thankfully, up until now they could only use our online footprints to try guess what we were doing in reality. Now, though, Google is telling advertisers that they have a way of tracking us in real life, all the time.

Google is beta-testing a program that uses smartphone location data to determine when we visit stores, according to agency executives briefed on the program by Google employees. Google then connects these visits to Google searches conducted on your smartphone – and gives you results based on the shops you’ve been to recently.

Google has declined to comment.

In order for Google to do this successfully, they will have to convince us to have our location services switched on at all times, and make us agree to constant monitoring. They’ll probably say they’re doing it to improve our “shopping experiences”.

Google will target Android users first, who they can track very easily. But, if you’re an iPhone user with a Google app installed on your phone, they can come after you too – even if you aren’t using the app at the time.

Buy a Nokia 3310. Lay low.

[Source : Digiday]