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Radio and TV network CBS will be running an experiment about cellphone advertising based on a person’s location or what it commonly known as location-based advertising. However, CBS did not specify the exact date and duration of this trial. The network giant hopes this will help arrest the aversion of many consumers to traditional ads seen on newspapers, TV and Websites.

Thanks to its tie-up with major mobile operators and social networking site Loopt, it can take advantage of the GPS-based technology to accurately serve geographically relevant ads the minute a customer steps in a particular establishment like restaurants or stores. These ads will appear on the company’s mobile sites, CBS Mobile and CBS Mobile Sports.

In this trial run, only Sprint and Boost Mobile has confirmed participation. CBS is in talks with other major wireless operators to join in this risky initiative. The downside in this trial is that only users with a GPS feature on their mobile phones can receive these ads. Also, these customers must have deals with Loopt. On top of that, privacy concerns are roadblocks of effective implementation. We’re living in a very paranoid world so it is natural for many people to feel threatened if some machine or system knows their exact location anytime, anywhere. That’s why this trial run will ask mobile users to opt in before any location-based ads are served to their handsets.

Read [NY Times]