A Privacy Slippery Slope?
March 11th, 2010 by ComputerBob
A few of my local grocery stores often offer deeply discounted prices on specific items to shoppers who have signed up for the store’s shopper card.
Here’s how it works: In exchange for filling out a registration form with your name, address, telephone number, email address, etc., the store gives you a plastic card the size of a credit card. Then, every time you shop at that store, you are eligible to receive huge discounts on many popular items — as long as you let them scan your shopper card, so that they can track all of your purchases.
Many years ago, I used a shopper card at a grocery store up in the Frostbite State, but, over time, I decided that I really didn’t want the store to be able to keep records of every single item that I ever bought — and I didn’t want to receive “targeted advertising,” based on the store’s knowledge of my purchases.
So I stopped shopping at that store altogether.
But a few months ago, one of the stores down here had a really tempting offer. If you bought one pan of Stouffer’s lasagna, they gave you free garlic bread, appetizers, frozen vegetables, ice cream and soda pop for free — if you used their shopper card.
I went to the store without a shopper card. When I got up to the cash register, I told the cashier that I didn’t have a shopper card. She called the service desk, and a few seconds later, a woman from the service desk brought over a brand new shopper card — attached to its registration form.
The cashier scanned that card — which gave me the special deal — and then instructed me to be sure to fill out the application and bring it back with me the next time I shopped there.
Since then, I’ve shopped at that store at least ten times.
Each time, I’ve informed them that I don’t have a shopper card.
Each time, they’ve given me all of the discounted prices, a brand new shopper card, and instructions to bring back my completed registration on my next visit.
So the store gets my loyalty as a customer and I get the benefit of their discount prices — without giving up my anonymity as a shopper.
What do stores do with the purchase-habit data that they collect from their customers?
As I mentioned above, they use it to target customers with advertising. But they may also do other things with it that I’m not aware of.
For example, I didn’t know until today that they’re happy to turn it over to the government.
I’m sure that a lot of people think that that’s a good thing, especially in that one specific case.
But now that they’ve stepped onto that slippery slope, what’s to stop them from turning over your purchasing history to other organizations “for your own good?”
Like giving it to your health insurance company — so that company can “help you make better healthy eating choices?”
Or giving it your employer, to “help reduce health care costs by reducing employees’ nutritionally related illnesses?”
No, thank you — I prefer to take my chances and preserve my anonymity.
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Consumer Info, Dubious, Ethics, Personal, Rights, Security