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Another opportunity to collect marketing data(at the least).

For some people this is a fair tradeoff for "free" wifi.

No, for most people it's that they don't even realize what the tradeoff is. It just "free", give it to me!!!11

Probably. Getting a VPN provider could be a solution for the few who knows about such solutions. If all ports but 80 and 443 isn't blocked that is.

Some VPN providers offer their services on port 443. Don't ask me why I know :)

A VPN provider won't protect your MAC address from being physically tracked.

IIRC iOS 8 performs MAC address randomization for just this reason.

No, unfortunately the MAC randomization seems to be pretty ineffective. IIRC, it only happens when the phone is sleeping, and has been for several minutes. http://9to5mac.com/2014/09/26/more-details-on-how-ios-8s-mac...

This is only when searching for WiFi... once you connect the access point will know your true MAC address.

But a rooted device does.