Mobile location analytics (MLA) is a type of customer intelligence and refers to technology for retailers, including developing aggregate reports used to reduce waiting times at checkouts, improving store layouts, and understanding consumer shopping patterns.
The reports are generated by recognizing the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth addresses of cell phones as they interact with store networks.
[1] By seeing the movement of devices, retailers can gather data that will help them optimize such things as floor plan layouts, advertisement placement and checkout lane staffing.
Recently companies started using the combination of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to improve accuracy and reliability of the MLA devices.
The technology works as people walk through stores; the tracking companies find their wireless signal and assign the device a random number.
[3] A number of industries can benefit from MLA services including retail, real estate, energy, insurance, manufacturing, healthcare, government, planning, and public safety.
[8] Several MLA companies have worked with United States Senator, Charles Schemer and the Future of Privacy Forum to develop a smart phone tracking code of conduct.
Wi-Fi tracking solution vendors are dealing with data based on these false MAC addresses if they try to detect not associated devices, and only if the smartphone connects to the Wi-Fi access point to have free internet access (then it is associated) they can detected the true MAC address of the iPhone.