I knew Target and other stores were tracking me with my credit card, I noticed it specifically with Target too. At one retail chain I made my first purchase there with a debit card, almost immediately I started getting discount cards in the mail. I can't say for sure how they correlated me to my physical address, but I can guess. They were part of a larger company with other chains, one of which I purchased something from online, using the same debit card.
People seem spooked out by Target using credit cards to track people, what about not using credit cards? Safeway uses Club Cards, and they to it totally in the open by giving people "Just for U" coupons on things they buy (I used two of them yesterday). I'm not at all bothered that Safeway gives me a coupon on the exact laundry detergent I always buy, I think it's pretty nice of them.
I think this sort of data collection could use some more regulation (in the form of consumer protection). Personally, I prefer to limit info I give to companies, I rarely put real info on those in-store cards, etc
So I see that there are possible bad uses of the data. But I don't see us heading in the direction of those bad uses. Hopefully our lawmakers will help protect our privacy while still allowing useful business analytics happen -- there's a balance to be had.
Bet you'll think twice before clicking Like on that next web page.
If the government wants your data they can get it. Using cash, which providing some theatric value, won't make you un-traceable (commercial banks track serial numbers through their systems).
Not saying privacy regulation has no use - it does (though this example with Target seems innocuous; be wary of slippery slope fallacy). But you aren't protected against a determined counter-party.
And if stores can track you just as easily through credit cards, then I wonder how long it will be until Target offers discounts for using credit cards instead of cash, if that's legal.
(Also, you could be getting those coupons because you don't buy that laundry detergent as much as you could; if you bought it much more frequently they might guess that they couldn't get your purchase volume up much further by dropping the price.)
Yeah, it's all fun and games if shops do it and they apply it to baby powder coupons. But the invasion of privacy and the private dossiers Target or Visa or Facebook are building on every one of us can be used in other contexts.
Is this person likely to engage in extreme sports? Hike his health insurance quota 5x because he is a "risk" to profits.
Does this job applicant fit a union sympathiser profile? Deny him the job, on the "pure" economic reason that he is a risk to our bottom line profits.
I'd much rather ensure that this kind of data collection and targeting is illegal across the board. I'm ready to sacrifice the coupon industry, thank you very much.
This person is likely to remain healthy for a long time, requiring little/no care for chronic ailments. Even in the event of an accident, it's likely to result in either death (free) or a serious injury (a moderately large one-time cost).
The expensive person is the fattie who develops diabetes, blood clots, and all the other chronic ailments of a sedentary lifestyle. Those sorts of things are expensive.
Because it was only a 5% discount, and I didn't buy much as a starving student anyway, I only used it for certain, specific items, just to mess with their database. So if you mined my data, I appeared to be some guy who ate nothing, drank nothing but milk, and was an inordinately prodigious consumer of toilet paper.
We have them up here in Canuckistan, now, too.