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Web Coupons Tell Stores More Than You Realize
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that a new breed of coupon, printed from the Internet or sent to mobile phones, look standard, but their bar codes can be loaded with a startling amount of data, including identification about the customer, Internet address, Facebook page information, and even the search terms the customer used to find the coupon in the first place. The coupons can, in some cases, be tracked not just to an anonymous shopper but to an identifiable person: a retailer could know that Amy Smith printed a 15-percent-off coupon after searching for appliance discounts at Ebates.com on Friday at 1:30 pm and redeemed it later that afternoon at the store. Using coupons also lets the retailers get around Google hurdles. Google allows its search advertisers to see reports on which keywords are working well as a whole but not on how each person is responding to each slogan. That alarms some privacy advocates. Companies can 'offer you, perhaps, less desirable products than they offer me, or offer you the same product as they offer me but at a higher price,' said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the United States Public Interest Research Group, which has asked the Federal Trade Commission for tighter rules on online advertising. 'There really have been no rules set up for this ecosystem.'"
What's the difference between this and the grocery store, drug store, or electronics store that wants you to carry a special card to identify yourself in order to get sale prices and discounts? Or the home stuff store that mails you a coupon postcard with your name and address printed on the coupon?
Companies can 'offer you, perhaps, less desirable products than they offer me, or offer you the same product as they offer me but at a higher price,
So? I can do the same thing if you come into my store. "50% off, today only." But only for you, not the guy behind you.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
coupons for stuff like whipped cream and silk rope could have some very interesting history, also with most transactions being tied with credit/debit card numbers there is a lot of information wal-mart, visa/master card, and whatever conglomerate owns your bank can data mine, the traceable coupons just add to that.
Exchange coupons with others.
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
Market segmentation has always been around - you sell things at Bed Bath and Beyond (just as an example) for outrageous prices, but also mail 20% off coupons in several different mailings. Different people get different advertising packages, and it's already based on your purchases since mail-order places tend to share mailing lists as an extra revenue stream.
So it's the new old thing again. Different prices to different people is exactly how the market works today - you buy something for full price, or wait until it's on sale, or wait until you have a coupon, or wait until it's on clearance. You choose the price by choosing when/how to buy.
I'd like to point out that there's no difference between this model and ordering online - online they have your name and IP address and the link you clicked to get to their store along with google keywords if you clicked from google. All this does is expand the same idea into physical stores like fast food that otherwise would be anonymous. If you pay cash, which since more and more places are starting to accept debit/credit cards means you're already giving them more information. And of course the card processing fees increase the cost of providing the service, increasing your food costs indirectly.
So yeah nothing new here.
I can a niche for a new website, a barcode anonymizer.
Feed it in the barcode, it decodes it, strips any identifying information and spits out a new valid barcode.
Of course your mileage may vary if the existence of whatever is used to track is part of the validation....
Making coupons more honest is not likely to reduce the flow of information. That requires convincing people that privacy is worth more than a bag of potato chips. One thing that Walmart did that was probably good is give people an realistic option to the overpriced brands they were brain washed in to buying during the 60's, 70's and 80's. Paying twice as much for laundry detergent, even when one could not afford it, was not sustainable. Sure, you got your stories on TV during the day, but was it worth it? Marketing is getting more direct because people still want brands, but they are not willing to pay for them.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
just put an unique id into it, and have it as a pk on your database.
I too am worried about my privacy, so I avoid coupons. In fact, I avoid buying anything myself. I anonymously hire people to buy everything for me, including groceries. They always pay cash, and wear different clothing each time. And if they ever get an odd look from the cashier or other suspect behavior, I have instructed them to immediately exit the store without purchasing anything. So far, I have maximum privacy. Another thing, I always make sure to post as anonymous coward.
new breed of coupon, printed from the Internet or sent to mobile phones, look standard, but their bar codes can be loaded with a startling amount of data, including identification about the customer, Internet address, Facebook page information, and even the search terms the customer used to find the coupon in the first place.
New? Really?
I just got out of advertising (hopefully for the last time) after a total of 6 of the past 11 years spent cutting tracking code.
The first time I wrote code to track brick and mortar coupons to the individual online origin was in 1999. Every online coupon you print has been doing this for many years. Every high tech advertising company in the business makes its pitch in part by having (or at least claiming to have) the most accurate and precise tracking. If you can think of a way that, theoretically, they might be tracking you; they almost certainly are. It is a massive portion of the value proposition behind advertising; learning which advertising works so you can maximize campaign efficiency. The companies that don't do this, and do it well, go out of business quickly.
The most surprising bit here is that the NY Times is just finding out. Perhaps they have their own in-house ad company? Or they don't run coupons online?
All that said, I'm happy to see this get some publicity. It stuns me how much people think they're not being watched on every single page they visit.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Companies can 'offer you, perhaps, less desirable products than they offer me, or offer you the same product as they offer me but at a higher price,'
I have a friend who I've had many contract jobs with (we bring each other along when we get a new job). He gets more money every time because he negotiates better. He also gets MUCH better deals than me on TVs, washing machines, couches, and on and on.
I can be pissed off about it, or learn to do what he does, or be happy with my life. The fact is that different people get different deals.
I work as a sysadmin for an Internet Advertising Company, and let me just tell you quite simply and without elaborating that what this article is getting all up in arms about? It's not the half of it.
But I just keep the servers working and don't make tactical decisions, so I sleep OK at night.
that's telling the store less than I expected.
Standard barcodes hold suprisingly little info. 5-20 digits. Thats its.
That information (generally) represents a unique ID, if the rules are followed, which will not collide with any other companies.
This number can be unique per product or per item, or whatever the company that owns the prefix wants.
Thats it.
No times. No email. Nothing else.
What happens, is when you use one of these special coupons is that its linked to a entry in a database that knows all about you.
The point to this is ... by the time you print the coupon, you've already given them all the information (how do you think they could 'print it in the coupon' anyway.
The only value this provides is a confirmation that you used the coupon you printed. Nothing else.
If you're using one of those retarded little 'discount' cards, you've already given them enough info to confirm it even without unique IDs on the coupons.
So that brings up the real question, if you're worried about being tracked, why are you doing things that intentionally make you trackable? Why are you creating accounts on websites and then telling them what you like to buy (by using the coupons). Why are you getting the little rewards cards?
A biggest question is ... WHY THE FUCK DO YOU CARE?
Seriously, little hint guys, no one really cares that much about what you do, they just want to sell you more shit, stop being such irrational fear mongers when it comes to privacy. You'll get much further if you pick your battles rather than ranting on about something every time you realize whats been going on for 100 years.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
a word we knew and loved, which had something to do with ecology.
No advertiser will give you stuff for free. Your discount is paid for with your personal data.
What is in fact despicable, though, is when you are not told exactly what this data is going to be. There is nothing wrong with selling your email address (hell, I'd sell my own by the bucket-load if I got something for them; I have good filtering anyway), but you deserve to know in advance what it is you are selling. It's your right as a seller.
I am the lead engineer for one of the largest providers for mobile coupon systems in the country. My company is known for havng the most robust and flexible couponing system out there.
This story is sensationalist as heck.
Of COURSE there's a lot of information in those coupons. Each one is unique. Therefore, each one can be tracked back to the user who received it. We have access to any information they've sent in (most common is name, age, and zip code, in addition to their phone and carrier, and their phone model if they went through a mobile website). What we don't do is sell data or phone numbers. Nor do we do reverse lookups or spamming. Stores can save any information they want about their users, such as what they've bought, or their number of 'loyalty points' and stuff like that. A SOAP request can pull down that information to their cash registers, and the cashier can update and add new information.
It's very similar to when the cashiers ask you for your phone number. The difference is that with coupons or rewards systems, people have an incentive to actually provide the info.
Careful what you say. You'll get modded a troll.
Especially, don't tell them that every time you touch a surface in a store with your fingers, you leave behind a biological marker that is unique and can be traced back to you.
This also happens when you masturbate into the store's drinking fountains. It's a privacy nightmare.
So you mean coupons you get off the Web are like--OMG!!!--Web cookies.
Come on people. There's nothing here that hasn't already been in Web cookies for more than a decade. If you don't want to be tracked, don't use 'em. Or, if you want o zap them, the cookies that is, see the instructions on the following Web page:
http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=3235
Steven
Here in Australia, and in New Zealand, you generally can only return goods if they are faulty or not fit for the purpose intended. There are some exceptions (clothing mainly), but in general, 'you bought it, you own it' -- especially for electronics. If something is opened in the shop there's no way we touch it.
Prices in the US seem pretty cheap compared to here, so how is the cost of returns managed? What sort of hardware can be returned anyway? I've seen comments on the 'net about people returning iPads because they're waiting for the 3G version and that really surprised me, as there's no way any shop would do that here.
I guess there is no such thing as buyer's remorse in the US.
Well played, sir.
"Standard barcodes hold suprisingly little info. 5-20 digits. Thats it"
I read the Times article days ago when it was published and before it reached the dotering^Wdoddering masses, anyway. I thought the article typical of Times writers lately was imprecise, fuzzy came to my mind, ambiguous; why the fuck not just insert a serial number and do a DB lookup on all sorts of shit. Never addressed the obvious point. Getting past any possible physical limitations of the barcode in the coupon. I figured the dumb fucking reporter was omitting the simple mechanics of the newer coupons I see. Ones that look like a mass of dots resembling a profusion of concentric circles. I figure those have a higher content limit.
Is this a USA-only coupon thing?
I do not recall seeing this type of business over here in Europe.
Being female, I already get dinged with the "female tax" for goods and services - haircuts, clothes, dry-cleaning, cars, car repairs, etc. I have no wish to see this extend to all products http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/ConsumerActionGuide/dunleavey-why-it-costs-more-to-be-a-woman.aspx
As for this information helping target advertising, I can't say I'm inspired by what marketing departments think women want, or interested in having information that comes to me filtered through a gender-refractive lens ground in the 50s. Had enough of that from career counselors and other 'advisers' when I was younger.
A widget is not worth $20. It's worth EXACTLY what your willing to pay for it. If I'm willing to pay $19, and your willing to pay $20 your not being "cheated".
... they are not getting any info that they can't get from a banner ad that took the user to their site in the first place.
America, Home of the Brave.