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California Lawmaker Wants to Ban Paper Receipts, Require Digital Ones (cnbc.com)
A California assemblyman has introduced a law barring retailers from printing paper receipts unless a customer requests one. Otherwise they'd be required to provide proof-or-purchase receipts "only in electronic form."
: An anonymous reader quotes CNBC: Stores that give out printed receipts without first being asked by the customer could be subject to fines [of $25 per day, up to $300 per year].... Proponents of the bill say the legislation would help reduce waste as well as contaminants in the recycling stream from toxins often used to coat the paper-based receipts... Up to 10 million trees and 21 billion gallons of water are used annually in the U.S. to create receipts, according to Green America, a green ecology organization. It said receipts annually generate 686 million pounds of waste and 12 billion pounds of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of 1 million cars on the road...
Then again, the use of electronic receipts raises some privacy concerns since retailers usually require an email address for an electronic receipt and companies will then be able to potentially track and collect more data about customers.
If the bill passes, digital receipts would become California's default option on January 1, 2022.
: An anonymous reader quotes CNBC: Stores that give out printed receipts without first being asked by the customer could be subject to fines [of $25 per day, up to $300 per year].... Proponents of the bill say the legislation would help reduce waste as well as contaminants in the recycling stream from toxins often used to coat the paper-based receipts... Up to 10 million trees and 21 billion gallons of water are used annually in the U.S. to create receipts, according to Green America, a green ecology organization. It said receipts annually generate 686 million pounds of waste and 12 billion pounds of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of 1 million cars on the road...
Then again, the use of electronic receipts raises some privacy concerns since retailers usually require an email address for an electronic receipt and companies will then be able to potentially track and collect more data about customers.
If the bill passes, digital receipts would become California's default option on January 1, 2022.
California... where you shit in the street, find a state funded safehouse to shoot up, enter the country illegally and be protected, and knowingly give someone AIDS without any repercussions... but don't you dare use a plastic straw or a paper receipt.
(1) Paper receipts should be required if the customer asks
(2) Electronic receipts shouldn't require the customer to provide any information other than an email address ("burner" emails are easy to get).
Of course, this is only a proposal -- lots of things get proposed in CA without many of them actually becoming law.
...for the iPhone and internet connection needed to go digital I'd go along with it.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I got a five feet long receipt/coupon today.
Ok, so they're going to force everyone to have a smart phone or laptop to bring to the store or other locations as proof of purchase?
Do they think everyone has one or can afford to have one?
Is that better than a small piece of paper, both recyclable and convenient?
Is receipt waste a big issue in California?
Are they really thinking this through?
You know, the more I hear of stories like this out of California, the more I think Lex Luthor had the right idea in 1978 Superman movie.
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
Come tax time, the thermal printed paper ones are just blank.
A lot of stores have employees/guards check receipts as customers exit. How is this going to work if it passes? Will the employee have tablet and somehow receive their checkout information? Will it involve even more tracking? RFIDs on shopping carts?
Well those that are still hanging on against Walmart and Amazon.
It's funny I had someone here (likely from California or New York) go on at me how people don't make good decision's for themselves.
This just shows you how really bad politicians making decisions for them can be.
The Great Nanny State of California is finally doing something about CVS receipts.
CVS Receipts refers to point-of sale records printed by CVS Pharmacy, the largest pharmacy chain in the United States, which have gained online notoriety for their lengthy form since the introduction of ExtraCare rewards program in 2011.
Yeah, but without CVS receipts, I'd have to buy toilet paper. /s
I need a receipt and there is no way in H*** you are getting my email.
Photocopy the receipt a day or two after purchase and staple the receipt to the copy before the paper receipt fades.
From someone who gets audited and passes. Auguring with the IRS never goes well, and they don't give a damn if you are right. If you are right, you get the privilege of paying an attorney to prove you are right.
this is just another way to collect data - now includes those who pay in cash. one thing for sure, it will make checking out a whole lot slower if you have to type or voice your email address. It means you could also be forced to sign up for some type of loyalty cards. so just say no and ask for paper.
Gotta remember this is a state that consistently votes in democrat's even though state has highest cost of living in the US and every year they find new ways to make costs higher.
It wouldn't actually help that much. For cash sales of small items that aren't returnable, they still wouldn't be logged in the register, or would be rung up as a cheap item.
I think you're remembering some kind of straw man.
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I found some thermal receipts the other day from 2013 - they're all fine. The new ones disappear in six months.
Somebody told me it's because of a BPA ban, but I'm not sure. I haven't tried eating any of the new ones.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Did any think of the privacy situation of never been able to buy anything with cash again without a digital recored kept?
Paper receipts ensure your privacy to buy anything you want without getting tracked on another device.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Plus handling them results in high blood levels of synthetic estrogen analogs.
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You have a cash register anyway, probably with Internet connection to accept cards. Adding the ability to send an email is software -- it doesn't really contribute to e-waste.
It still astonishes me that credit card companies haven't improved on this yet - statements are still cryptic line-items that sometimes lead to chargebacks because people don't remember/can't figure out what it's exactly for, nor is there some electronic means to verify the charge to some type of virtual receipt produced at the time of purchase.
AC comments get piped to
"California Lawmaker wants to ban paper receipts entirely, nationalize shopper tracking"
Summary: It's important that we save millions of trees each year and also understand shopping habits so that we can later roll out a fully government controlled food economy. There's just too much choice in the inherently unstable marketplace and people can't be trusted to make their own decisions.
I'm sensing a conflict here for large purchases.
Trees pull CO2 from the air to produce wood. The tree is cut down and the wood is pulped to form paper, which is then used to print the receipt. If the receipt is subsequently thrown away in a landfill, doesn't that remove CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester it underground?
It's pretty hard to ring something on the register and not declare it in the total.
On the other hand, if the customer isn't expecting a receipt, you don't have to ring it in, can pocket the cash and report an inventory adjustment/shrinkage, offsetting store income.
never been able to buy anything with cash again
That's the idea. Cash is on the way out. All purchases will be tracked (now) and approved (in the future). According to your needs (as determined by The State).
Have gnu, will travel.
This isn't rocket science... if you purchase with a credit card, Home Depot ALREADY DOES this.
If you want to return things:
* Give the items you want to return to the clerk.
* Clerk scans the items, and gives back all the stuff you bought at Lowes and forgot where it came from.
* You swipe all the credit cards you might have used to purchase the returned items.
* Home Depot uses the card data to look for receipts associating a purchase of one or more returned items using that card, and automatically credits the price back to the card.
* For everything else, you provide your ID, and they give you a store credit (the ID is needed to limit the ability to brazenly shoplift items and return them later... if you start returning TOO MANY big-ticket items without a receipt, they'll restrict your ability to get receipt-free refunds of cash purchases in the future.
They should be barred from creating that database of customers.
There is zero reason after emailing a receipt for a purchase, for the e-mail to be kept any longer.
I fully support this bill, so long as there is a strict 'No Capture receipt is issued" requirement.
1) All digital banking.
2) Shady algorithms to maximize bank fees.
3) All digital receipts.
4) Shady algorithms to round up to target profit margins when banks and merchant account providers (other banks, basically) start colluding.
5) Years/decades/forever of people being perpetually poor as the algorithms decide how much they need of their own money before they would otherwise sue.
Probably more electricity used to send the receipt electronically than just printing the paper.
But I wouldn't worry about it, it's a common practice to create news about some crazy guy's plan that will never actually occur. It isn't that California is weird this way, go to any state or country and there's always that one guy that proposes something stupid.
Give the store the email address of assemblymember Phil Ting who proposed the bill assemblymember.ting@assembly.ca.gov. No inconvenience at all.
Buying a book, music, a political meme as art work is still a bit more private with cash than a direct connection to a smart phone AC.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Since a few years here in Québec/Canada, Restaurants are obligated by law to give a paper receipt in hand even if the customer doesn't want it. They need to throw it out themselves if they don't want it. A special section is added to the receipt by the black box of the gouvernement and they don't even compensate for the additional paper and wear and tear of the printer! Inspectors are visiting restaurants and handing out penalties if those laws are not respected... Total Opposite...
Not only stored, but how do I know I've "collected" all my receipts at the end of the year (or up to seven years later), and, most importantly, will the IRS accept these during an audit?
--- Keep the choice with the user..
Yep. Because we have such a good history with completely electronic systems. Where physical access allows pretty much anyone to do anything.
And no paper trail means that it's just that much easier to cheat.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
In practice, 99% of these cash registers do not support email
I get e-receipts from Walmart and Home Depot.
If they can do it, why can't others?
I fully support this bill, so long as there is a strict 'No Capture receipt is issued" requirement.
So everyone in the checkout line has to re-enter their email address for every purchase? That is silly.
The e-receipts that I receive are automatically tied to either my credit card or my phone. Swipe, tap, done.
No thank you. And don't tell me the law could prohibit using the email address for marketing. When has that ever stopped them?
-- Will program for bandwidth
We said that about the plastic bag ban. Then, they passed it. Now, we have to buy trash bags for my house that use 10x as much plastic, use 10x as much fuel to deliver them to the store, and are basically worse for the environment in almost every other measurable way. And yet still, there's tons of trash blowing around our streets, because what the legislators didn't do is pass a law fining the garbage truck companies for overuse of automation in ways that result in trash littering the streets behind them.
So no, we should not assume that any idea, no matter how bonkers, is beyond the level of bats**t-craziness that the California legislature is capable of exhibiting. We should always assume that any idea proposed by a politician, no matter how absurd, is likely to pass, and use every ounce of our strength to stomp the bad ideas squarely into the ground.
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Hey, moron!
Do you honestly think people are going to type in their email address at the counter every time they want a receipt?! No way!
This is a huge leap toward a totalitarian police state. That's what this is. Cash or card, government will know.
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Only statists (::cough:: Leftists) would ever force this on every store.
Especially in the most populous state!
Hey, California! Convince some poor low-population state like New Hampshire to test your bullshit ideas first! Jumping in head first as the largest state with the largest city is a good way to end up dead in the water.
Just ask any competent engineer.
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Could NFC technology be used for delivering a digital receipt to your phone without you having to hand over your email address (and thus get spammed)? It would also be a lot faster than waiting in line for people to spell out their email addresses.
Any time I'm asked for my email address so they can send me the receipt, I refuse. And I'll continue to refuse. So if this is to be forced, then a better way than email or SMS is needed.
Oh, and can you guys sort out those CVS receipts, as that one chain is probably responsible for half of all receipt paper...!
Paper usually decompose quite well , and most of it return to the atmosphere under the form of CO2, possibly methane both which are not sequestered, it just seep up. But the whole cutting wood, pulping it, producing paper cutting it to rolls, producing ink, delivering that ink/paper, all cost CO2. So this is not carbon neutral, even if your paper was not decomposing.
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I get e-receipts from Walmart and Home Depot.
If they can do it, why can't others?
Are you fucking serious? Those are the two of the largest retailers in the United States. You think every goddamn quick-stop has a cash register that will send email?
Largest city? Los Angeles? Yeah.. no..... *hint* NY
Email is _not_ secure from broad government monitoring. The NSA's unconstitutional "Carnivore" email monitoring program still exists, it was merely renamed, to DCS1000.
10 million trees just to print receipts. They completely logged the side of a lake we are on for 42 miles. Even if someone of the paper is made from recycled paper, I refused to use paper towels to dry my hands. Your hands dry anyway. Shake the water off your hands and then give your arms a moisturizer as you walk out of the washroom.
When mechanical tills were first introduced, shopworkers would ring up the wrong amounts and pocket the difference. So they introduced a till roll. That didn't stop the fraud until they gave the customer a copy, since then the customer would complain if the receipt showed the wrong amount. (Any benefit to the customer's right to complain was probably incidental).
We're already seeing electronic receipts a lot in the UK. At least I get asked if I want a paper receipt. And email ones make sense for "click and collect" purchases where they already have my email address.
Who voted for that idiot?
So instead of a receipt that takes less than a second to print, and is completely recyclable you want people at the checkstand to be typing in - or even worse, trying to get the checker to type in by dictation - everyone's email address?
The old lady who writes checks and has a folder of coupons thinks this will slow everything down at a store's front end.
It's a solution looking for a problem.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Because Home Depot and Walmart are fortune-100 corporations with an army of IT people and budgets of millions of dollars?
Please think every once in a while.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Yeah, how terrible is it that we have a few liberal states? We need ALL of the country to be 100% in lockstep with whatever Rush Limbaugh says. Anything other than that would be terrible. Imagine... People with different ideas and different ways of life living in the same country? Madness! We really should just have one political party, and kick out anybody who doesn't agree. Great idea.
I don't respond to AC's.
So I know there are some NFC security factors what probably need to be tightened up before I want something pushed to my phone, but isn't this a perfect opportunity for NFC on the pay terminal? We already have CC terminals with touch to pay. As a first step, well before we start mandating and/or banning anything, what about passing contactless payment receipts back to the customer's device and then displaying it? Second step, even for CC contact payments the customer would hold their phone to the terminal and get the receipt.
Just an idea of how to do it without giving out email addresses, which take time, rubs me the wrong way, and does seem like a bigger add to the terminals than NFC.
If you can't be good, be good at it!
It's a solution looking for a problem.
I was about to say, that would be the short and sweet of it. But on reflection: It's a solution looking for votes, and whether it actually solves anything is entirely besides the point.
Retailers, especially large ones, will love it: More customer data to monetise. Heck, do away with the paper, they'll say, and force everyone who wants a receipt to register. That'll cause more spam, which isn't free of cost either.
Over here in (a country in n/w) yurp, supermarkets and such ask me whether I want a receipt. Along with sometimes two or three other thingies I may or may not want.* Some shops print it anyway and throw it away if I don't want it. Others only print one if I answer affirmatively. Yet others I have to ask.
I always get the paper receipt though I very rarely need it. But on occasion I do need it. Especially when I forgot to ask. So I ask.
* Trading stamps, promotion stamps or gimmicks, what-have-you. I basically never want those.
I mean go buy an item from any large grocery store and pay with a card, and you can't get away without having like 3 bits of completely useless paper forced on you.
That badly needs to end.
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Statist is probably preferable.
The left-right spectrum is NOT about politically liberal to conservative.
Itâ(TM)s about âoeforceâ - just like this, âoedo what we sayâ - to âoenot-forceâ, i.e. freedom. The fact that political parties have co-opted and distorted this until âoewar is peaceâ-level cognitive dissonance is the minds of the general public is just another symptom of the problem.
I don't agree with making a cellphone mandatory for shopping, but people have to make receipts that are safe for handing and disposal. I've lost too many people to cancer to disregard its causes.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
You have a horrible misconception.
The trees used for paper are called "softwood" and are replanted. Fact, the paper industry replants more than they use. The paper industry does not destroy forests.
You are whining about logging for lumber, not paper. Different trees.
Stop being stupid, those paper towel makers are helping.
And how many times has Home Depot been hacked? They can't be trusted with data.
You're essentially asking if a politician thought about the consequences of the legislation that they voted for. They barely get time to read what they're voting for, let alone think about it.
what's the cost of digitally storing and making available only to the purchaser all receipts for perpetuity ?
Go well
Most paper in the US is made from trees grown on tree farms. Yes, trees are a crop, planted and raised by farmers, like any other crop. They just have a longer harvest cycle than seasonal crops.
http://www.ecology.com/2011/09...
Why do we want to put tree farmers out of business?
The reciept-less tellers will have a big e-paper display facing the customer which shows the complete reciept.
It includes a fingerprint certifying that it's signed by the shop's private key.
The customer uses his phone to take a picture of the reciept. Done.
If the customer does not have a camera, he pushes a button and gets a printout.
See... there is no email address involved. Completely anonymous.
This solution is visibly so simple that nobody will even think about it.
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
Normal people don't recycle trash bags. What happens in a recycling center if someone tries to do so is moot.
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...and your email address. What if you'd rather they not have it? I get enough spam as it is.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
I was under the impression that a computer file fixed in a tangible medium (such as the SSD of your mail server) was "written". At least that's the case in copyright law. Moreover, a document whose hash is encrypted with the private key on your payment card's chip is digitally "signed". Is there case law on the statute of frauds to the contrary?