Data Mining Is Big Business For Kroger & Getting Bigger All The Time | Hacker News Reader

Data Mining Is Big Business For Kroger & Getting Bigger All The Time

kypost.com

22 pointscwan7 comments

I spent a few months at Kroger headquarters working on a requirements analysis for replacing their master item database.

At that time ('07) the system was this hybrid of IMS, COBOL-APPS and some DB2, with all the item management coming in from these green screen old school apps.

The loyalty program was one of the most modern programs, with some java based system. As I recall, a bunch of scripts did a dump to a flattened DB2 database and that was sent to dunnhumby.

--edit I forgot to mention the amusing kroger database schema story. apparently, they did their first schema so long ago that PLUs were not invented yet, so when PLUs came along they shoved them into some unused label field... as we analyzed the data more, we found more and more of these things, sometimes fields were even split and shoved into two unrelated fields...

Working link:

http://www.kypost.com/dpp/news/region_central_cincinnati/dow...

Still not working for me for some reason (chrome 5.0.375.38 beta), upvote anyway.

It seems like they may have been taken this out of context:

  > Brown knows the card is Kroger’s key to knowing exactly
  > what he buys and when he buys it, but he doesn’t think it’s
  > an invasion of his privacy.
  > 
  > "Not at all because of the savings on the things I like to
  > purchase in the first place," he stated.

Whether or not something is an 'invasion of privacy' is independent of whether or not you are willing to accept it because you feel you are getting something of value in return.

If you're aware of what they're doing with your information and you still shop there, it is NOT an invasion - it's a price. There are lots of items I consider too expensive and that buying it would be an invasion of my wallet. There are lots of expensive things I buy that I'm ok with paying for.

> There are lots of items I consider too expensive and that buying it would be an invasion of my wallet.

But if you choose to buy it, isn't it no longer an 'invasion' by your logic?

Right idea, the ones I don't buy b/c they're expensive are invasive. Nothing I decided to purchase was invasive (although something falsely represented, like a lemon car, would be).

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