They are - at best - heat mapping stores, not employees. And heat map have a sense of density over a region, it is by definition continuous values where the are

They are - at best - heat mapping stores, not employees. And heat map have a sense of density over a region, it is by definition continuous values where the area has a major impact on the final value. Here they just rate each store. If this is considering "heat mapping". Then basically anything that gives score to stuff that can be placed on a map is also "heat mapping". This includes : - Your company "heat mapping" their clients according to the revenue they generate - The US department of education "heat mapping" the students based on the SAT scores - My mom "heat mapping" her next holiday destination based on price When we think about heat-mapping a person, we immediately imagine tracking where that person spends time. Until I read the article, I was imagining whole food setting up cameras in their store to see if employees spend time congregating. And that would be a horrible thing to do. But giving points to stores based on - among other signals - how many sales they generate. Well... that is the least worrying thing I read all day. So the whole point of the article is to instill fear into the reader by - willingly - using the wrong terminology to give a bad image to a known company - even going as far as adding "Amazon-owned", just for the sake of it - until the astute reader notice of deceiving the article really is. And if you did not take the time to fully read their "article" (I have other words that are far less nice to describe that kind of writing) well your judgment of a company just got biased without any ground.