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Kroger has felt especially intrusive for a couple of decades; it's almost as though they're going out of their way to be manipulative and creepy, right from the
by mbg721 5y ago
Kroger has felt especially intrusive for a couple of decades; it's almost as though they're going out of their way to be manipulative and creepy, right from the store layout where Pepsi is $87.00 at your feet and Coke is $0.75 at eye level, down to the personalized coupons they send you in the mail. But the big stores that don't have loyalty cards are still slurping up data; they just get it from your credit card and their cameras. I don't know what the answer is, beyond just trying to frequent farmers' markets.
- after_care 5y agoPay cash, wear a hat and a mask in store, decline to give them PII. It’s a pretty simple and effective solution.
- mbg721 5y agoBut then don't I become that guy from the xkcd comic whose license plate is all 1s and Is?
- swiley 5y agoDon't drive. You have to register your vehicle with the state and your current address.
- mbg721 5y agoIt's very confusing, sharing an apartment with all these other guys also called Rusty Shackleford whose phone number is 867-5309.
- OnlineGladiator 5y agoIt's okay, whenever someone threatens you just rely on the trusty ol' pocket sand technique! https://youtu.be/PTAXUYLbFYk https://youtu.be/PTAXUYLbFYk
- landemva 5y agoI opted out of the 'must register your vehicle to a mailing address' a few years ago. The toll firms and meter maid cities send stacks of scary looking penalty assessment letters, which I forward to the landfill. No consequences to me, and the captured CO2 in the paper is sequestered in the dump.
- 6510 5y agoThe 86.9-87.5 kg, 170-178 cm hat+mask guy without a cell phone wants to buy security and self defense items.
- kyleee 5y agoJust disguise yourself as a birthing person
- titzer 5y agoAnd walk like a penguin? They have gait recognition. Revel in the dystopia that's already here. Soon it will be Gattaca. De-gene-erate!
- sodality2 5y agoGravel in the shoes, like Cory Doctorow foretold...
- half-kh-hacker 5y agoThere's a lot of wisdom in those books, I really like 'em.
- sodality2 5y agoI read Little Brother when I was only 12, it's why I originally installed linux :p His books are awesome, I really love the blend of plot and technical bits he drops in. I read almost all his books right after reading Little Brother and enjoyed every single one.
- nonameiguess 5y agoUse the scooters they provide for mobility-impaired people. Note you shouldn't actually do this because you're taking away a scarce resource that might actually be needed by other people who can't walk, but it would defeat gait recognition. You can always bring your own scooter, but you'd have to bring a different one every time or you could be identified by the scooter. Since that would get quite expensive, you might need to pool resources with other privacy-minded individuals to maintain a shared group of scooters.
- HanShotFirst 5y agoMake sure to wear gloves so they can't get your fingerprint off of the scooter handles.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
- jimmaswell 5y agoMy answer is to not worry about it and be glad that these practices lower prices.
- fukmbas 5y agoYeah who gives a shit how many tampons I buy
- Vinnl 5y agoWhat if they don't actually lower prices, but use your purchase history to learn what gets you to spend more money?
- Scoundreller 5y agoIn Canada, 'price discrimination' is a criminal offence. Cuz you know, if something is anti-consumer and impacts rich people, strong laws will be written against it. But there's many ways around it.
- shadilay 5y agoWhen has anything so trivial as legality bothered multinationals?
- Vinnl 5y agoIt needn't even be price discrimination; for example, they can also just specifically highlight discounts for you for products that you usually combine with expensive/high-margin products that you otherwise wouldn't buy.
- detaro 5y agoHow do they lower prices?
- titzer 5y agoExactly. It doesn't lower prices. What it really does is increases profits, which allows them to grow faster than local markets and they can expand and wipe out even more groceries and ends up as a big fat bonus for the executives and shareholders.
- opportune 5y agoI hate the idea of facial recognition tech being used like this but I really don’t mind loyalty cards/using credit cards to track spending as long as the data is only used by the stores themselves (and not also sold wholesale to the highest bidders, which I bet it is). I think it’s fair for them to gather analytics on spending habits and use it to make decisions on how to stock their store, run promotions, etc. Same for personalized coupons. Feels weird, but is pretty harmless, and I’m pretty sure they’re just trying to get you to try new things (like for me, beyond meat) so you start regularly purchasing it.
- norov 5y agoNo it's not really fair. Until I start seeing Kroger going out of their way to support data provacy initiatives and consumer protections, correctly assume they have ill intent with your data.
- missedthecue 5y agoWhat is the worst that could happen if Kroger learns that I use my rewards card to purchase a loaf of wonderbread and other assorted groceries every week?
- pridkett 5y agoYou buy a pregnancy test and pre-natal vitamins. This information is sold and put together as part of a “profile”. Your employer buys these profiles, sees you’re pregnant and fires you because who wants to deal with maternity or paternity leave. You never told them you were pregnant, they can claim they didn’t know.
- pixl97 5y agoSelling it off to a data aggrigator that sells the information to the FBI so you get investigated for buying too much hummus after the next terrorist attack.
- 29083011397778 5y agoHome Depot lost over 50 million debit and credit cards. Linking your first and last name with your payment method / methods and submitting it to companies not known for their security may not be in your best (long-term) interest. Doubly so considering many company account forms have address as well - meaning anyone with access is very close to having everything required to open a bank account in your name. You're not wrong though; arguments against loyalty cards are seemingly random chains of chance, and the information is being sold by Visa as well anyways. So I'm not surprised by the free market, laissez-faire ideals on display. I don't have my eyes on perfection, just on minimizing how many times I give out potentially damaging information. And if some other people start to push back as well? Well, the more the merrier.
- mustacheemperor 5y ago>I don’t know what the answer is I know this isn’t a privilege available to everyone, but I just shop at a locally owned city grocery that isn’t part of a national conglomerate. I don’t think Good Life Grocery and Rainbow are scanning my face…or maybe I’m one of the oblivious shoppers from the article?
- mbg721 5y agoWell, I'm in Cincinnati, roughly the 25th largest metro area in the US. When I grew up, there were IGAs, but I think they're all gone now. We have various farmers' markets, and a couple of one-off independent grocers, and then there's Jungle Jim's, which is sort of a combination grocery-store/amusement-park. I don't know if they're scanning my face or not, but if they are, it's so they know what kind of hot-sauce wall to build.
- JohnFen 5y ago> But the big stores that don't have loyalty cards are still slurping up data; they just get it from your credit card and their cameras. True. If you're paying with a card, you might as well use the loyalty program as well. And be sure to put your cellphone in airplane mode before you get to the store.
- jdeibele 5y agoI wonder if there's a Winco or local equivalent for you? They don't accept credit cards, only debit cards, checks, and cash. No loyalty programs. And you have to bag your own groceries. I switched from using a debit card to cash just because I like the idea that I'm not being tracked at all. WinCo Foods, Inc. is a privately held, majority employee-owned[5][6][7] American supermarket chain based in Boise, Idaho, with retail stores in Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas,[8] Utah, and Washington. It was founded in 1967 as a no-frills warehouse-style store with low prices.
- silisili 5y agoI don't really understand the loyalty card thing anyways. When I lived in the midwest, I'd just get a card from Kroger but never fill out the paperwork. I thought I was being clever, but as pointed out, they still track you by your payment method. With that being the case, why do loyalty cards still exist? For cash buyers?
- asdff 5y agoTo drive demand to certain items at certain times. Not everything is always on sale with the card.