Welcome to NewsDesk on SiliconANGLE TV for Monday July 15, 2013. Brick-and-mortar stores are introducing new data tracking methods in the hopes of catching up with their online retail competitors. Joining us now to provide his breaking analysis on the new ways in which we’re being monitored is SiliconANGLE Contributing Editor John Casaretto.

See live feed below or visit youtube.com/siliconangle to watch on-demand.

Nordstrom wanted to learn more about its customers — how many came through the doors, how many were repeat visitors — the kind of information that e-commerce sites like Amazon have in spades. So last fall the company started testing new technology that allowed it to track customers’ movements by following the Wi-Fi signals from their smartphones.

To kick off this week’s NewsDesk with Kristin Feledy, we’ve got our very own security expert John Casaretto on the show, who will talk to us about the new tracking technologies, and we’ll further discuss with him the ethical and business implications of using such technology on a daily basis.

Retailers want to know more about their customers, but many choose to shop in privacy, and don’t want computers to know every time they walk into a store. So how do we find that balance between such opposing forces, and how can businesses keep better track of what’s going on in their store without violating the privacy of their customers? Furthermore, John will discuss what sort of privacy you can expect in a retail environment, and what you can do to avoid detection.

Also, you’ll hear John discuss the extra potentials of big-data in relation to this kind of supermarket surveillance, and how computers will be able to infer things from shoppers, just by looking at them.

Finally, you’ll catch John’s opinion on whether or not we should fear being watched 24/7 or embrace the technology, to take advantage of the convenience of a targeted  shopping experience.

See the live broadcast, embedded below.  If you missed today’s topic, check our YouTube channel for archived clips.

photo credit: Abdulmajeed Al.mutawee || twitter.com/almutawee via photopin cc