Google reportedly ditches secret project to beam location-based retail messages to smartphones

Fortune reports that Google has abandoned plans to beam location-based retail messages to both Android and iOS smartphones, shortly before launch. The project was reportedly named Google Here, and would have used beacons in retail stores like Starbucks to display offers and reward cards on the lockscreens of smartphones when they entered the store.

Google Here worked by sending a notification to a smartphone user’s lock screen within five seconds of their entering a partner’s location. If the user clicked on the notification, a full screen HTLM5 “app” experience would launch. Google Here would know when to send the notification via Google Maps and beacons placed in the stores of participating partners … 

Sources familiar with the project said that Google was concerned that the service might be seen as too invasive, and was also uncertain about retailer interest, leading Alphabet CEO Larry Page to shut it down.

Google Here would not just have been about offers – it would have also done potentially more welcome things like load up a loyalty card and display details of trains when walking into a station. But Google was reportedly concerned that the more sales-oriented push notifications would have met with consumer resistance.

Image: Pencilblade