The Federal Trade Commission has settled a dispute with Nomi Technologies following a privacy complaint where the company tracked retail customers without an opt-out option or any notification to detail the tracking had been initialized.

Even though some privacy advocates wanted the FTC to make an example out of Nomi Technologies, set up in late 2012 with no real privacy policy, two Republican members on the FTC pushed away from a court battle.

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"It's vital that companies keep their privacy promises to consumers when working with emerging technologies, just as it is in any other context," said the director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, Jessica Rich.

"If you tell a consumer that they will have choices about their privacy, you should make sure all of those choices are actually available to them."

It's not the first time a technology company has overstepped the mark when it comes to privacy, with many instances of privacy policies being broke by the tech company without informing anyone about the change.

"We continually review our privacy policies to ensure that they follow best practices and had already made the recommended changes in pursuit of that goal by updating our privacy policy over a year and a half ago, while we were still an early-stage startup that was less than a year old," said Nomi Technologies in a statement.

Nomi Technologies installs hardware capable of taking addresses from mobile devices. Once the user enters a retail store, the sensor is capable of tracking the movement of the user, and with consent send push notifications to the device.

Similar technologies have been set up by Apple through its own iBeacon service, allowing iPhone users to get push notifications from stores. These push notifications could be a vital part of retail shopping in the next few years as smartphones become tools for retailers to utilize.

The FTC has been overshadowed by the Federal Communications Commission in the past few years with Chairman Tom Wheeler focusing on net neutrality and the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger and staying in the public eye.

The FTC, however, has shown it doesn't want to be left out in the tech world, fighting for the rights of consumers against poor privacy practices and also looking into the Internet of Things to make sure everything is safe and secure.

TagsFTC, Nomi Technologies, retail, phone tracking