I was in Walmart this afternoon, and later this evening I noticed a strange icon in the upper left of the home screen on my android phone. On examination, I found a notification ostensibly from Walmart asking me to rate my visit, timestamped seven minutes after the timestamp on my receipt.
I have no Walmart-related apps on my phone, so how were they able to push a notification to it, let alone IDENTIFY it while I was in-store in such a way that would allow them to do so?
TL;DR: By December 6th, 2018, Google stopped serving Nearby Notifications. Android users won't receiving this kind of notifications.
As @Martin Fürholz pointed out, that was came from Google Maps notification service. Specifically, from Nearby Notifications feature that being developing by Google for the last years.
Nearby Notifications Overview:
Nearby Notifications helps users to discover what's around them, by surfacing location-specific notifications for apps and websites, with no prior app install required. Using Nearby Notifications, you can:
- Drive your own app installs.
- Open personal or business profiles in social apps.
- Launch conversations or chatbots inside messaging apps.
- Drive consumers to content about nearby products.
- Help users explore store inventory.
- Drive checkins, reviews within local/travel apps.
Neither experience requires that an app is installed on the user's device.
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How Nearby works:
Nearby can use small amounts of Wi-Fi or mobile data to connect to Google and get info about broadcasts or shared apps.
Nearby doesn’t track, monitor, or send personal info from your phone.
- Nearby broadcasts are one-way, like over-the-air TV or radio. Services that send Nearby signals don’t detect or get data from your phone.
- When you give permission, apps that work with Nearby share with each other using remote servers. The sharing devices don’t connect directly.
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