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3 On Your Side: Driving Deals

By Jim Donovan

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- You get ads on your tv, the radio, internet and even your smartphone.  But the next spot advertisers are targeting just might surprise you, the navigation screen of your car!

3 On Your Side consumer reporter Jim Donovan takes a look what impact it could have on drivers.

Aimee Brittain doesn't mind sharing her GPS location with advertisers, and likes when coupons pop up on her phone when she's near a store offering savings.

"It lets me know that, hey, they know I'm going by, they know they want me as a customer. I think it's a great thing," said Brittain.

And now new location-based technology can deliver similar promotions through the screen on the dashboard of a car!

"The car is the next frontier in terms of delivering content and advertising to consumers," said Alistair Goodman with Placecast.

Placecast is one company that delivers ads while you drive.

"In the case of this program, it's an audio ad that is actually triggered based on your location.  If you like the ad, you click the thumbs up and you get a reminder email sent with a coupon on your phone that you can then take into the store," said Goodman.

Industry experts say we should buckle up for more of these targeted in-car promotions.

"There are a number of app developers that are working on a location based ads that would- a consumer would opt into to receive offers while they're driving around and pass a participating location," said Ron Montoya with Edmunds.com

But Montoya says deal or no deal, this could be one more distraction that drivers just don't need.

"I think for driving it creates too many distraction issues.  When you receive an ad, you need to sort of process that information, think about it, see if you want to take it, and then press a button to confirm it so there's a little bit more thinking involved," said Montoya.

As for privacy, companies will have access to users movements, but you'll have some control.

"Many of these are opt in. If you don't feel comfortable with it you can just opt out of it and just not even deal with it," said Montoya.

"We make very clear what data will be collected and we don't resell that data to any other parties," said Goodman.

Pandora recently announced they're sending ads to screens in cars too.  Right now, they're not location-based, but they tell us the plan is to ultimately start sending targeted deals to drivers.

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