Slashdot Mirror
RFID Coming 'Whether You Like It Or Not'
VTBassMatt writes "According to an interview with Scott McGregor of Philips Semiconductor in BusinessWeek, RFID tags are coming whether we like it or not but of course won't affect our privacy. Choice quotes from the article include such gems as, '[P]rivacy concerns around RFID tags are a little like concerns about supermarket scanners years ago. When the laser scanners were coming out, everybody was saying, retailers are going to collect information about what you buy. And none of that happened.' Is that why I have two loyalty cards on my keyring and three more in my wallet?"
At most Kroger stores, you can hit the top center grey button on the CC input box. The screen will show a K+ on the display. Type in the phone number associated with your Kroger Plus card, and it will process the discounts.
Just an FYI.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
surely you know, your name is encoded on that little magnetic strip?
with your real name- they can find your snail mail address-- truly..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
When the laser scanners were coming out, everybody was saying, retailers are going to collect information about what you buy. And none of that happened.' Is that why I have two loyalty cards on my keyring and three more in my wallet?"
My friend was the project manager on the project that brought the loyalty cards to Giant Foods (big in the Mid-Atlantic region of the US, not sure about elsewhere) and he told me this is _exactly_ what they do. They track all your purchases and which sale items you buy, etc. Heck, the management there was giving him crap about not shopping at their stores because they were looking up his records at work!!
We are being tracked... more and more and with greater efficency every day. Personally, it scares the crap out of me.
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Yup, 10% of all retail good sold in stores are sold through WalMart. 10%. That's huge. They can make you (as a supplier), but then they'll probably break you later on.
And coupons for things that they want you to start buying. Do you really think they're doing you a favour? There's no way they are making a loss on "sale" prices, so the more generous-looking the offer, the more they're screwing you by default.
A good site for this stuff.
- I didn't have to give out my name or address to get the card, so it's anonymous data
- The data from my purchases helps them run their store better, so everyone's happy
Well, no. The data from your purchases helps them ditch "unprofitable" customers, so they ain't happy.
Around 1999, the supermarket industry got wise that the larger part of their profit was being made from a small minority of customers, ones that buy high profit items (like premium ice-cream). The card data lets them profile what the "profitable" shopper buys, and they send coupons and stock the shelves to please them. In the mean time, they try and discourage "unprofitable" customer by shrinking shelfspace for the lines that they buy, and the "profit" guys don't. Because of this, they don't really care what your name is (like they ever did as long as they got your money). They just want to know your profile and work out whether they still want you as a customer.
It doesn't take an Einstein to work out that the end result is to phase out the cheap, low margin, staples that the lower income bracket depend on in favour of Haagen-Daaz and Organic Cider. So after stamping out the local Ma and Pa stores with agressive pricing of these basic goods, they want to be absolved of the responsibility of providing them because they have a low margin.
In the UK, this is fairly mild at present. You get a percentage discount (as redeemable coupons) and the odd (targetted) product coupon. Some lines have extra "points" on them but the price stays the same whether you have a card or not. I hear in the US some stores pretty much enforce the uptake of these cards by using punitive prices on some basic goods - like offering the "sale price" pretty much where it was before but raising the no-card price to a silly level. Although the UK market does have a number of synergistic loyalty cards that cover several outlets (e.g. Shopping + Fuel + Electric + Others).
Curiously, the Wal-Mart (Asda) stores in the UK are one of the few that don't have profiling cards. But I wouldn't be surprised if they were tying shopping records to one-way hashes of payment card info (or if anyone else was).
In the meantime, can you imagine the opportunities afforded by RFID? No more do they have to offer the semblance of "loyalty" to get their profile data - they can just tie the purchase logs to the RFID in your shoes. Chains that collaborate can start tying clothes preferences to food preferences to any other preference, tracking your movement through stores (no purchase required!), hell, even noting how long you pause in front of the rack of iPods, with sub-floor RFID pickups. (<Marketroid>"He stopped and drooled for 10 minutes today, send him another brochure!")
Q: A lot of people worry that RFID will infringe on their privacy. Is that a valid concern?
...except when the RFID tag isn't on the tag, or there is more than one RFID tag.
...At the low end, the primary differentiator is price. At the high end, it's more about features, such as security, encryption, protection from evildoers.
...except the evildoers the system trusts, who can use RFID for their activities.
A: There's a theoretical risk. But we have safeguards, and more are coming. Our tags have a kill function that will destroy the tag in case of tampering.
Destruction in case of tampering is to protect the retailer, not the customer.
There are ways to simply erase the information on the tag. There are also less high-tech ways to deal with this: When I buy a garment, one of the first things I do when I get it home is cut off the tags. You can cut off RFID tags the same way.
Also, privacy concerns around RFID tags are a little like concerns about supermarket scanners years ago. When the laser scanners were coming out, everybody was saying, retailers are going to collect information about what you buy. And none of that happened. I think the situation with RFID is similar.
Exactly that happened: retailers gather data on customers, made possible by barcodes. RFID is like a barcode which can be scanned as you walk past the scanner, even if it's in a pocket or inside the sole of a shoe:
And for a lot of makers of sports shoes, RFID provides added benefit to customers. The average life of a sports-shoe model is about three months. Say that when your shoes wear out, you want a similar pair. It's incredibly difficult today for the retailer to tell a customer which new model corresponds to the old one. But we could fix that with RFID. That's a great sales tool.
As if current shoes couldn't have their model number printed on the inside. And what was that above about removing the RFID tag? How do you do that when it's embedded in the shoe? What better place to put a unique serial number than in a person's shoes, to be read by floor-based scanners under doorways.
well.
Wal-mart forces a monopoly in small towns.
Where I am currently sitting, the town is population 18,000; pre-wally world, the town had 4 grocery stores, 2 department stores.
since Supper Wally came in, we have 2 grocery stores (and 1 of those will be closing within the year) and 0 department stores.
I've seen them go into a town of 8000 and cause everything but the walmart go out of business.
So, unless you live in a fairly urbanized area, walmart does it's best to become your ONLY choice.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.