SoCal Mall Tracks Shoppers via Cell Phones

Temecula - Holiday shoppers are now being tracked via their cell phones at an Inland Empire mall.

The firm doing the tracking -- at Promenade Temecula -- says the goal is to improve mall design and give retailers data that can help them better serve their customers.

Malls have long tracked crowds, but this is the first time they've used cell phone signals to do it.

While the data that's collected is anonymous, it can follow shoppers' paths from store to store, and has raised some privacy concerns.

Manufactured by a British company, Path Intelligence, the technology -- called "FootPath"-- has already been used in shopping centers in Europe and Australia.

While US malls have long tracked how crowds move throughout their stores, this is the first time they've used cell phones.

Is cell phone tracking good for shoppers or just retailers?

Dr. Donna Hoffman, Professor of Marketing and Internet Retailing at UC Riverside, weighs in.