HSBC cans Bluetooth spam plan

Link: HSBC ditches scheme for mobile ads via Bluetooth – ZDNet UK

HSBC has dropped plans to send advertising messages using Bluetooth technology to the mobile phones of people passing the bank’s branches.

The bank ran a trial of the technology earlier this year at its Regent Street and Canary Wharf branches in London. The system works by using a small box inside the branch that scans mobile phones to detect those with Bluetooth enabled.

I hate Bluetooth spam. There’s one at Waterloo train station that was constantly bugging me the other day. Every few minutes it’d try and send me a message, even though I’d said no previously.

HSBC are a little quiet on the full reason for dropping the plans – a spokesman said: “We did look at the results and it is not being taken forward. It didn’t prove commercially viable.”

And that could mean anything.. but I would assume some of it was down to people walking in the branch complaining!