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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.
So trying to get customer loyalty is a bad thing?
No, it's not. What is a bad thing is dicking over people who don't use them (me) by jacking up the prices and offering "discounts" that bring the price back in line.
how do you expect to get customers to keep coming to your store if you can't track them?
How about this for a novel concept: Sell things for an everyday low price. When lowered market demand or locally prevailing conditions dictate, offer a discounted price (the pros sometimes call this "a sale").
I know that grocery is a horrible business to be in. You're operating on a 1-3% margin. Forcing consumers to chose between getting fucked over privacy-wise (for those who submit to being profiled) or getting fucked over financially (by not getting the ephemeral "discounts", and paying the artificially inflated price) is what is wrong about the cards.
If it was about loyalty, then all the cards would track is that you were in the store, and perhaps what you spent. If it was about profit (from the data), then the cards would record who you are, where you live, what you buy, and when you buy it. They can't yet track what made you buy it (or, should I say, not anymore--cuecat), but once cheap cybernetic links are available, I'm sure they'll offer the same "discounts" for them as well.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
No comment, just undoing a moderating mistake *sigh*