HP unveils creepy app that stalks people as they shop

Hewlett Packard has unveiled a new mobile app that retailers can use to stalk people as they shop in order to send them targeted adverts and promotions.

The iOS app, dubbed SmartShopper and unveiled at the Interop conference in Las Vegas today, has the ability to send location-based smartphone offers to customer’s iPhones in real time.

It is being promoted by Meg Whitman’s HP as a way for retailers to monetise their networks and a way to build “tighter relationships with their customers”. Dominic Wilde, a VP within HP’s networking division, told Techworld in California last week: “It has very accurate location capabilities so that we can identify a device down to 2m, which is 60 percent better than anything else on the market today. In best case, even down to 1m.”