• CNN, Wednesday, November 23, 2011 11:58 AM

This holiday season -- in the interest of greater consumer insights -- two U.S. malls plan on tracking shoppers' every move by monitoring their cell phone signals. “While U.S. malls have long tracked how crowds move throughout their stores, this is the first time they've used cell phones,” reports CNNMoney.com. “The goal is for stores to answer questions like: How many Nordstrom shoppers also stop at Starbucks?” it explains. “How long do most customers linger in Victoria's Secret? Are there unpopular spots in the mall that aren't being visited?”

As for privacy concerns, management for each mall -- one in Promenade Temecula in Southern California; the other in Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. -- promises that personal data will not be tracked. "We won't be looking at singular shoppers," Stephanie Shriver-Engdahl, vice president of digital strategy for Forest City, tells CNNMoney. "The system monitors patterns of movement. We can see, like migrating birds, where people are going to." All the same, the company says it plans to alert visitors to the tracking by hanging small signs around its shopping centers.

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