In law school, everybody learns the adage that hard cases make bad law. When it comes to the Federal Trade Commission, a better aphorism might be, “easy cases make new law.” The FTC’s recent settlement with Nomi Technologies Inc. is, as the FTC’s press release notes, the “FTC’s first against a retail tracking company.” On its face, the case is like many FTC privacy cases: It challenges a statement in the company’s privacy policy for allegedly being inconsistent with the company’s actual practices and thus deceptive. Under the surface, however, the case may open the door for the FTC to create a notice-and-choice regime for the physical tracking of consumers, analogous to its well-established notice-and-choice regime for online tracking.

“Retail Tracking” and Nomi’s Allegedly Deceptive Practices -

Retail tracking occurs when retailers, or their third-party service providers, capture and track the movements of consumers in and around stores through their mobile devices, such as through the use of Wi-Fi or beacons, in order, for example, to better understand store traffic or serve targeted offers. The FTC’s chief technologist recently published detailed comments on the “privacy trade-offs” of retail tracking and the various technologies that companies are using to engage in it. Given the potential lack of transparency around the practice and the corresponding privacy implications, it is not surprising that the FTC decided to address the practice through its Section 5 authority, even if the FTC did so in an indirect fashion.

Originally published in Law360 on May 19, 2015.