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WHAT'S THE STORY WITH PROXIMITY MARKETING:Towards the end of last month, Pricewatch unknowingly walked through a Bluetooth hotspot on Dublin's Wicklow St and caught a glimpse of an unsettling and unpleasant future. Our phone beeped and before we knew what was happening we were watching a 19-second advert for UPC - the company spawned by the marriage of NTL and Chorus.

As part of a new multi-million euro multimedia campaign, UPC has been trialling a comparatively new form of advertising known as "proximity marketing". It takes advantage of Bluetooth, a short-range wireless system for transmitting data, to target phones that come within range of small base stations. UPC has set up 10 such stations in locations across Dublin and, for weeks now, has been indiscriminately broadcasting adverts to any device it can reach.