The particular reason this opt-out is odious is that opting out requires you to stop participating in a service the mall has nothing to do with. If an opt-out is, "to opt out, press this button before entering the mall", or, "to opt out, stay at least ten feet away from our mall maps", or, "to opt out, do not enter the food court", then they could sorta kinda make a case for legitimacy. (Those would be somewhat bizarre, admittedly, but at least they're directly related to the mall in some way.)

The "but I need my cell phone" objections are missing the point here: the opt-out is policy is bad not because it's making you forgo a convenience or even a necessary item, but because it's hijacking your commercial relationship with someone else entirely. Kind of like the technological underpinnings of the tracking, which are mitm-ing on the signal itself.

I wonder what the cell companies have had to say about this?