BudNet Tracks Your Suds

An anonymous reader writes "CNN is carrying a story about Budweiser's national internal sales tracking network called BudNET. It allows Anheuser-Busch to instantly track sales across the country, and 'If Anheuser-Busch loses shelf space in a store in Clarksville, Tennessee, they know it right away.' It brings up some interesting privacy issues, because according to the article 'The last time you bought a six-pack of Bud Light at the Piggly Wiggly, Anheuser servers most likely recorded what you paid, when that beer was brewed, whether you purchased it warm or chilled, and whether you could have gotten a better deal down the street.' Frankly, I don't want Budweiser knowing when I choose to buy their beer versus another brands."

Comments

They're not tracking individual customer purchases

[elflet]

According to the article "They're drilling down to the level of the individual store," Thompson says. "They can pinpoint if customers are gay, Latino, 30-year-old, college-educated conservatives.

They do that in two ways (again, according to the article): a "nightly sweep of their distributors' databases" and 2) on-site visits by sales reps who notice how the store is set up, whether it's selling room-temp or chilld beer (or both), and probably noting the class of customers.

Despite Michael's concerns, there's nothing in there about tying to individual customer purchases or even getting explicit sales data on competitors' products.

So much foil your neck is going to snap

[cyberlotnet]

People.. Read the article fully. They track the BEER, not the person. Information like that is extremely important for the marketing of a product.

This information allows them to know there market, plan shipments and various other usefull things.

But instead you would prefer to assume they are tracking how many brain killing gulps of beer your drinking so they know when your drunk enough to use there super secret beer tracking brain scanner to download your life and the history of your poor sex life.

Re:Just pay with cash

[frovingslosh]

Just pay with cash and they'll never know it was you!

Unfortunately, at a growing number of stores, including every single grocery store in my area, thay want you to carry and use a card that identifies you to the system even if you do pay cash. Of course, you can not cary a card, but then you don't get any of the sale prices, and more and more items seem to be "on sale". Of course, the sale prices are still higher than the items were before the cards, and higher than the items are in areas where they don't have the cards. So yes, you can pay cash, but be prepaired to pay a few bucks extra if you want to retain your privacy.

Re:Just pay with cash

[switcha]

thay want you to carry and use a card that identifies you to the system even if you do pay cash. Of course, you can not cary a card,

Or just download, print and apply the the Ultimate Shopper's number and get your sale prices whilst still donning your tin foil apparel.