I think the point is they wouldn't stand for it if minders followed them all over the store.

Security personnel undercover as shoppers already exist and are widely deployed to surreptitiously follow suspicious people. We can and do and will continue to stand for it.

There is a difference between security personnel (who may be responsible for observing hundreds or thousands of people per shift) and wholesale aggregation, analyzing, and collection of data.

We stand for it only because the people being tracked are likely to be criminals. We understand that if we do not engage in criminal activity we will very likely not be followed. If my local store started tracking me for no good reason I would go elsewhere.

>If my local store started tracking me for no good reason

You can know that the store uses secret shoppers in general but unless the secret shoppers are terrible at their jobs, you wouldn't know whether or not you're being tracked.

Also, doing traffic analysis and strategically placing displays in retail stores has been happening since long before cell phones. Just put someone behind one-way glass, on the mezzanie level of a mall, or even right on the floor with a clipboard.

I do not disagree that tracking happens. What I disagree with is your implication that the scale at which it happens is irrelevant. It isn't. A security officer tracking me in a mall or a secret shopper recording my actions constitutes a single data point. Mechanically recording of all my movements within the store by tracking my cell-phone removes entirely all of my anonymity.

This kind of stuff is creepy, Orwellian and it can fuck right off.