This is after forcing login to a store account:
At least they don’t hide in their ToS that:
“l agree to let Walmart monitor my use of Walmart WiFi, including to:
- Determine my presence in Walmart stores
- Associate information about me with my Walmart account
- Improve products and services
- Gather market insights about my in-store purchases and activities”
But that’s not enough, they need to monitor your internet activity further too.
For further reading, some greatest hits (the section headers on Wiki’s Criticism of Walmart):
- Local communities
- Allegations of predatory pricing and supplier issues
- Labor relations
- Poorly run and understaffed stores
- No AEDs in stores (automated external defibrillators)
- Imports and globalization
- Product selection
- Taxes
- Animal welfare
- Midtown Walmart
- Opioids settlement
Not entirely sure if this is possible but I’m increasingly suspicious that they started jamming outside networks within their warehouse. Of course it makes sense that mobile data doesn’t really work inside a giant steel warehouse, so perhaps it’s just confirmation bias, but I can’t seem to recall not having any mobile data signal at all until my last walmart visit.
I used to keep to myself and look up the location of the item I was looking for online. If they want me to bother a floor person for it though, doing that is highly preferable to giving walmart my email to sell along with any information they can extrapolate from my usage of their network.
Jamming is incredibly illegal so I doubt that. They probably just have a bad roof for reception.
Also remember hanlon’s razor.
Multiple big-box stores in my area have poor cell reception in-house. I blame the giant metal roof overhead, which is probably acting like some kind of Faraday cage or RF filter.
Yes, Walmart is committing felonies 🙄
Excuse me for not knowing the precise legal landscape involved in covertly blocking the use of outside networks inside of a private warehouse department store
For future reference, jamming radio equipment is illegal essentially everywhere on earth because it’s banned by the ITU rules, which every country on earth has adopted with the sole exception of Palau. Palau isn’t an exception here though, because they’ve also also adopted those rules in a roundabout “not-actually-joining the ITU” way.