What Do You Buy At The Grocery ... Punk?

fifths writes: "I'm not sure how many of you saw this story from the Scripps Howard Washington bureau -- as reported in the 'Washington Calling' column in the 10-07-2001 edition of the Knoxville(TN) News-Sentinel: 'Federal agents are tracking suspects tied to the Sept. 11 strikes through supermarket club cards that may give a hint of ethnic tastes. "Time was, this data was so disorganized nobody could make sense of it, but not anymore. They're looking for people based on their supermarket tastes," says consultant Larry Ponemon, head of the Privacy Council business consortium.' Anyone else bothered by this? Burn your supermarket cards." Better yet, trade your supermarket cards, frequently. (Perhaps with friends or relatives in the furthest city with the same chain?) Maybe Larry Ellison would like to have a few.

Comments

Re:Find a local grocery that *doesn't* use cards

[Technician]

I found there is a cost to the database, which is of course passed along to consumers. (Serious now, who do you think pays for it?) I have found out long ago that most stores that do not have the program have lower average prices all the time. It just isn't worth the trip to the high priced store just to see what the K-mart style special item is this week. I save lots more elsewhere without the cost of the database program added to the cost of the products. I quit shopping Safeway because the noticable differance in the bottom line. A 3.50 item with a savings of .75 is still more than the same item at 2.50 elsewhere.