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Ask HN: Does Costco information collection bother you as much as it bothers me?
I am being compelled by family to get a Costco membership but their information collection bothers me. Particularly, it is pretty disturbing to me that they require a government-issued ID to open an account even though their form says that an ID is not required unless one plans to write checks there.
I know this is not looking like a well-formulated write-up but I am trying to understand if anyone else is concerned about this data collection, particularly if there is a breach. The way I see it, they keep your ID information, address, date of birth, another picture that they put on your ID, along with your shopping habits and history. If there was ever a breach, the data thieves in question would acquire a rich mine of information that might enable them to pass a credit check if they also had your SSN.
You can say that Amazon collects information. True, but they are intrinsically limited. You can create multiple accounts there and never have to give them ID or date of birth, etc. Further, you can close your account.
Costco seems to be very interested in tracking each individual consumer very precisely. I say this because when I questioned their information requests, they said that it is to ensure that I don't have any existing accounts with them since they don't like "clutter" in their system (stated as such by the counter manager.)
I know I have a choice to not shop there but I just found it immensely curious how obsessed they are with tracking individuals. The closest analogy I can think of is Facebook and Google's respective "real name" policies, which are hardly impregnable.
Anyways, I guess I am wondering if anyone else has had similar concerns and has interesting theories on the matter.
- jeffmould 11y agoAs much as I agree with you to some extent, every store you walk into, and make a purchase from, whether it is a 7-11 or Costco, knows you. Especially true of grocery stores where frequent shopper cards and tracking is used to determine not only the ads you see, predict your purchases, but also overall product placement within the store as well. A good example of just how well stores know us: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe...
- abawany 11y agoI agree that this example is disturbing. However, you can shop at most stores with cash and no memberships, which I believe would make tracking more difficult. Further, tracking used for recommendations is one issue but in my mind, the idea of collecting semi/non-repudiable information about customers such as ID card numbers and date of births is more disturbing to me, particularly from an ID theft point of view.
- jeffmould 11y agoI get what you are saying. On the other hand I don't personally have a problem with driver license number or date of birth being shared. These two pieces of information are so easy to collect on an individual that it is almost impossible to prevent at some point. For example, my grocery store sells alcohol, you have to be 21 to purchase, and the cashier will scan your id into the system. So even if you don't have a shopper card and are paying cash, they have still collected identifying information. While they are not legally required to store and collect the info, they are legally required to verify that you are at least 21 years of age and take advantage of that to correlate. I also place some value in my grocery store knowing what I buy and the frequency at which I may purchase those products. Every week I get an email from them with a list of sale items specifically targeted at me including products previously purchased and ones I may be interested in based off those products. So to me being able to save a couple dollars here and there simply by them knowing what I purchase and when is worth them having the information. In the end I could care less if someone knows what I buy at the grocery store every week and what little information my store has on me (I pay cash at the grocery store out of habit) would be useless to a thief unless you plan on stealing my groceries or are looking for a discount on milk.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> However, you can shop at most stores with cash and no memberships, which I believe would make tracking more difficult. As long as you don't show your face, sure. http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500253499/Almost-30-of-retailers-use-facial-recognition-technology-to-track-consumers-in-store http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500253499/Almost-30-of-r...
- eip 11y agohttp://genius.com/Bill-hicks-on-advertisers-and-marketing-annotated http://genius.com/Bill-hicks-on-advertisers-and-marketing-an... "Seriously though, if you are, do."
- abawany 11y agoThanks for the good laugh. I guess Costco happens to have a particularly AR marketing department with a very compliant audience.