WAY OFF: Insidious business practices

[Matthew Braun]

Sigh.  I should know better than to take the bait like this, 'cause I'm
sure you know most of this, but what the hey... :-)

Paul Mather <paul at GROMIT.DLIB.VT.EDU> writes:
>That must be why he posts to a mailing list that maintains a permanent
>archive of everything he says for all the world to read, I guess.
>Where is the opt-out on BOC-L?  Oh, the horror! :-)
Actually, this issue has come up on other mailing lists, with a "X-No-Archive"
header made available to the listmembers if they want it.  To post here, you
must make your email address public: them's the rules.  But you know how it
is--some aspects of your life you're willing to make public, and some things
you're not.  I consider it okay to disclose that I listen to BOC, but I'd
rather keep it private that I drown kittens in gasoline every Friday night.
Err...oops.

>Damn those Big Corporations forcing us like that!  Sometimes they even
>have the nerve to put up prices instead of cutting them like they
>should.  We shouldn't have to pay what is in effect a cost of doing
>business tax!
I don't mind the store knowing what I buy for purposes of inventory
management.  Thing is, discount card information usually isn't.  It's for
targeting marketing campaigns, and determining the demographics of purchases.
The information is sold to product manufacturers, or other firms so they can
target me with junk mail, telemarketing, etc.  That's what I'm not wild about.
If the guy down at Murphy's knows what I drink, or the guy at the magazine
rack knows what I read to better serve me, hey, that's fine.  But I do mind
if someone I've never heard of knows exactly what I buy.  I dunno--maybe
it's just me, but IMHO it's none of their business...literally. :-)

>=> You can sell them the information and are rewarded through rebates, or you
>You mean getting money off when you use the card isn't some kind of
>reward/rebate?
Uh, no...it is...Hmmm...I thought that was my point...

>I can't help feeling that somewhere in all this appears to have been
>lost the fact that Kroger are a business beholden to their shareholders,
>and not in fact a charity.  Obviously, they've decided that knowing what
>customers buy is useful to their business model and ongoing operations,
>and that this card scheme (rewarded by savings and other incentives to
>participate) is a cost-effective way to implement this.  Kroger have
>been trying to find out what people buy in their stores since they began.

Man, they must have one helluva shoplifting problem. :-)

The cash registers are all tied into the same system.  At the end of the
day they know how many pounds of tomatoes, and how many boxes of Kraft
Dinner they have sold without scanning a single card.  What they sell isn't
what they want to find out--exactly who buys what items is.

>Okay, if Kroger started selling groceries online, via a WWW site that
>required cookies, would that satisfy everyone? ;-)
Oh yeah, I'd sign up tomorrow, yoobetcha.  And I know my privacy will be
assured, 'cause the little padlock on my Netscape window is locked. ;-)

>The thing that narks me is that they won't let me access my data.
Oh, c'mon--I'm sure you could buy it back...along with the data of others in
and out of your demographic group.  :-)

>(Excuse the flippancy, please.)
I don't begrudge them making a buck.  They've picked this system to profile
their customers to the point of finding out who buys what.  I've tried to
opt-out, and all it costs me is money.  It's not a big deal.

                                        ("Here kitty-kitty-kitty...")

                                        m@

ObCD: The Who, "Who's next"