New York City’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications has killed a pilot project that involved installing hundreds of sensors in phone booths across Manhattan. The Bluetooth-enabled sensors, were used by marketing companies to send commercial messages to people passing by via a downloaded smartphone app.
The city shut down the sensors because it hadn't authorized the sensors to be used in this way. Titan 360, the company that owns many of the ad spaces on the side of phone booths suggested that the sensors would be used to notify company employees when it was time to change the ads. However, the company ended up making marketing agreements with various vendors. For example, the company that creates the sensors, Gimbal, struck deals with app companies that work with retailers in order to send retail customers coupons when they are near the store.
Apparently the unauthorized use was the result of a misunderstanding between city officials and Titan 360 who though they had received approval to test an advertising/notification program that would be able to generate future revenues for the city. A portion of the revenues from advertising would have flowed through Gimbal to Titan 360 who would have given a share to the city in the form of a "rent payment". Gimbal is currently working with other municipalities throughout the U.S. to place sensors on public structures giving a glimpse at how companies will soon leverage very specific location targeted mobile advertising.
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