As advertisements swamp cell phones, privacy worries multiply

“It’s proceed with caution,” said Jarvis Coffin, chief executive of advertising distributor Burst Media Corp. “Are consumers going to be spooked by the idea that suddenly their phone goes beep and it’s a Starbucks offer, and they are standing next to a Starbucks?” Carriers are now guarding the data zealously, but many people believe it’s only a matter of time before marketers can routinely target ads to a potential customer’s location and actions.

Imagine getting pitches for rental cars and hotels the moment you land in a city because an analysis of past calls suggests you tend to take weeklong trips there. Or if day trips to another city are your thing, you might get an offer for cab service instead. “My phone has a lot of very specific and detailed information about myself ... information that isn’t always going to be resident when I’m at a number of PC browsers,” said Rob Adler, chief executive for mobile Web company go2 Media Inc.

More and more people are using cell phones for more than calling, embracing data services like text messaging and ring tones — and devices also are improving. Advertisers, meanwhile, are starting to experiment with mobile ads. With a boom in GPS devices and location services like maps and child tracking, it’s only natural that advertisers, too, will want to take advantage of location information.

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