horseless carriage
Well-known Member
We all know supermarkets use information about our shopping habits to target us with personalised vouchers and offers – but how would you feel about sitting down to watch a movie and being confronted with adverts based on what was in your shopping a few hours earlier?
Or what would you think about your supermarket using its loyalty card database to check what you are eating, and possibly offering vouchers for salad and fruit if your basket is usually groaning with unhealthy items? These are just two of the ways the supermarket giants make use of the data they gather on us.
For every loyalty point or coupon that your supermarket dish out, they gobble up a huge amount of information about our shopping habits. We are all familiar with targeted offers linked to loyalty cards, but you might be surprised at the amount of data the big retailers collect on all of their shoppers – and even potential customers – and what they do with it. If you have opted out of taking out a loyalty card because you don't want "Big Brother in your shopping basket", then too bad, because the supermarkets also track debit and credit card payment data and till receipts – so someone, somewhere, knows about that bottle of wine you bought at 12.28pm on Tuesday, and that you recently switched your brand of athlete's foot cream.
Harvesting our personal details goes further, much further. The technological giants have become masters at it, everything from *cookies* on your computer/phone/gizmo to your home and email address. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave access to sensitive user data to dozens of app developer friends, according to thousands of leaked documents. Companies were also given incentives to share their data with Facebook, while those that did not were shut out and denied access. If you think that is underhand you should check out Google.
Banks track us when we spend on our cards as do so many others. What I find so repugnant is when you use any sort of tactic to avoid all this tracking and find yourself demonised. Take the point of using cash. Cash is slower, it's unhealthy, it caries the covid germ, we will be cashless before long. I don't mind being cashless but I bet we can't buy a card that is anonymous on which we can load so much money for spending use.
Finally, the favourite argument often put up is: "What have you got to hide?" To which I reply, "Why do you want to know?" I don't want my personal details, stored, shared, bought and sold, that's why I pay with cash, why I clean all the cookies every time I log off and why I use Duck Duck Go instead of Google.
Or what would you think about your supermarket using its loyalty card database to check what you are eating, and possibly offering vouchers for salad and fruit if your basket is usually groaning with unhealthy items? These are just two of the ways the supermarket giants make use of the data they gather on us.
For every loyalty point or coupon that your supermarket dish out, they gobble up a huge amount of information about our shopping habits. We are all familiar with targeted offers linked to loyalty cards, but you might be surprised at the amount of data the big retailers collect on all of their shoppers – and even potential customers – and what they do with it. If you have opted out of taking out a loyalty card because you don't want "Big Brother in your shopping basket", then too bad, because the supermarkets also track debit and credit card payment data and till receipts – so someone, somewhere, knows about that bottle of wine you bought at 12.28pm on Tuesday, and that you recently switched your brand of athlete's foot cream.
Harvesting our personal details goes further, much further. The technological giants have become masters at it, everything from *cookies* on your computer/phone/gizmo to your home and email address. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave access to sensitive user data to dozens of app developer friends, according to thousands of leaked documents. Companies were also given incentives to share their data with Facebook, while those that did not were shut out and denied access. If you think that is underhand you should check out Google.
Banks track us when we spend on our cards as do so many others. What I find so repugnant is when you use any sort of tactic to avoid all this tracking and find yourself demonised. Take the point of using cash. Cash is slower, it's unhealthy, it caries the covid germ, we will be cashless before long. I don't mind being cashless but I bet we can't buy a card that is anonymous on which we can load so much money for spending use.
Finally, the favourite argument often put up is: "What have you got to hide?" To which I reply, "Why do you want to know?" I don't want my personal details, stored, shared, bought and sold, that's why I pay with cash, why I clean all the cookies every time I log off and why I use Duck Duck Go instead of Google.
