8 ms·

This to me is part of a general trend wherein only those with the awareness and resources required will have privacy. For example, if you do have the funds, se

This to me is part of a general trend wherein only those with the awareness and resources required will have privacy. For example, if you do have the funds, send a private shopper. But an even more direct example is skipping the discounts associated with club cards for privacy reasons. This will further entrench the class divide between the wealthy and the rest of us.

beambot 5y ago
Unless your private shopper is paying cash, your privacy is probably still illusive.
- reedjosh 5y ago
  You'll get no argument from me. :)
cronix 5y ago
> But an even more direct example is skipping the discounts associated with club cards for privacy reasons. Right, but most still pay with a credit/debit card when checking out which gives the cc/bank the same info. At least with a store club card they only know what you purchase in that store/chain, instead of every store.
- reedjosh 5y ago
  > Right, but most still pay with a credit/debit card when checking out which gives the cc/bank the same info. Yes, which is why I think cash is crucial until/if we get a digital equivalent. > At least with a store club card they only know what you purchase in that store/chain, instead of every store I haven't done research to confirm, but I'm guessing club card data ends up in the hands of data brokers at some point. Of course this probably varies by chain.
  - kyleee 5y ago
    There will never be a state sanctioned privacy enabling digital cash equivalent since the data surrounding transactions is far too valuable (both in a monetary sense and in a social control sense). I'm sure the phrase "digital cash" will be used in the marketing lingo though
    - reedjosh 5y ago
      I agree. I like Monero, but it will never be state sanctioned. I don't much care for the state.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I bet if I asked the people I know (many who earn enough to not need the discounts) if they would rather spend 1% less on their groceries and let go of their grocery purchase data, or if they would spend 1% more and keep their purchase history private, almost everyone would choose to voluntarily give it up and spend 1% less.
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    Now imagine if that number is 5%+ -> i'm sure many many people would give it up!
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  I'm guessing this is why many grocery stores don't allow NFC payments, except for (in my area at least) Safeway, whose non-club pricing is so punitive that most people just knuckle under and get the card. Though I just use 867-5309 anyway. Works in every area code, AFAICT.
  - fennecfoxen 5y ago
    "Forgot card" often works too!
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      That's good to know. Another trick I used to use was just to tell the cashier that I forgot my card, and she'd grab a spare and swipe it. Then they started doing phone numbers, so that probably doesn't work as well now.
      - dabbledash 5y ago
        $local_area_code-867-5309 is almost always registered. No reason to sign up for your own card.
        mellavora 5y ago
        Jenny, is that you?
  - kevinmgranger 5y ago
    How do NFC payments relate to it?
  - kube-system 5y ago
    I was at a self-checkout recently that required a store rewards membership to checkout at. I tried 867-5309 but form validation required both a phone number and a last name. I guess retailers are catching on.
munificent 5y ago
The industrial revolution divided the world into those who had capital (owned factories, tools, land, etc.) and those who produced labor (worked in the factories, used the tools, worked the land, etc.). Those on the side of labor couldn't provide value without access to capital where it could be used. Conversely, those with capital need labor to extract value from it. The factories don't run themselves. In theory, this would balance out and lead towards some level of equality. In practice, the high barrier of entrance and smaller numbers on the side of capital made it much easier for them to drive down labor prices and exploit. That led to massive inequality—think robber barons and the like—which in turn eventually led to the organized labor movement. We are now recapitulating this historic arc in the information revolution. Now the world is divided into those who own data and those who produce it. Large corporations own giant fields of data and the computing technology required to derive actionable information from it. Everyone else gives up their personal data and attention to feed those enormous machines. This has led to the growing inequality that is causing a breakdown in institutional trust and is driving people out of cities that are increasingly affordable only to the elites who run the data factories. At some point, we will hopefully have an "organized data movement" where people work together to be able to make effective demands about how their data can be harvested and used. We aren't there yet.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  > The industrial revolution divided the world into those who had capital (owned factories, tools, land, etc.) and those who produced labor (worked in the factories, used the tools, worked the land, etc.). Don't be silly. The world was divided long before the Industrial Revolution, and if "labor" was ever on top of things, it was for fleeting moments. What changed with the Industrial Revolution was the collection of economic power in the hands of a mere titan of industry — instead of some baron, or prince, or caesar, or warlord, or chieftan, or other political personage.
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    Very true. We are witnessing how a new aristocracy is being built. This time it’s not based on skills in warfare but around business skills. But the result is the same: you have a small group who thinks they are better than others and deserve to receive the vast majority of the profits society creates. And they manipulate the game to their advantage. This seems to happen in all societies until a revolution happens and the cycle starts anew just with different actors.
oramit 5y ago
Why should I care to keep what I buy at the grocery store private? I'm not trying to be flippant with this question. I'm just honestly perplexed why this is an important dateset to keep private. Also, why would I want to avoid discounts? Grocery stores are one of the few places that gives me money for handing them my data. Isn't this good behavior!?
- nonfamous 5y ago
  What you buy at a grocery store can reveal a lot about you: - Personal care products: gender - Medications: age/health of you and family members - Magazines/media: political affiliation, social class The list goes on. [Edit: formatting]
  - psychomugs 5y ago
    This always reminds me of the anecdote of Target predicting pregnant customers and "outing" them before they or their family knows [1]. Really makes one consider using cash. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits....
    - slg 5y ago
      >before they or their family knows To be clear, it is before their family knows and not before they know. It is extremely difficult to figure out someone is pregnant before they know. It doesn't take any complex analysis to see someone purchasing prenatal vitamins and conclude they are pregnant.
  - slg 5y ago
    I guess this is an answer to the question but it doesn't answer the motivation behind the question. Why should we care about these things being public? You can tell my gender and rough age by looking at me for a second. If you want to keep those private your grocery store is the least of your concerns.
  - oramit 5y ago
metters 5y ago
I believe even with resources it won’t be possible to evade that. Gait recognition can even recognize a person that pretends to walk like a different person or being hurt - at least that is what I heard last time about this technology.
GuB-42 5y ago
This may actually close the class divide a little. The thing with privacy is the more wealthy you are, the more valuable it is. For example, if I want to sell something, I will want to target the wealthiest first. Same thing for scammers, and newspapers will follow celebrities. Who care about the poor, there is no money to extract from them. So let's get back to the private shopper. A rich and famous man will want to hire a private shopper, because he knows that if he is found in a shop, he will be bothered by people who are after his money and fame. His privacy is worth a lot, to him and to others. The private shopper is likely to be of a more modest status, he can go shopping without being bothered, he may be tracked by robots and end up with personalized ads, be part of some statistics, whatever, but no one will stop him for an autograph or some special favor. So when the rich man pays the private shopper, with a little extra for his discretion, that's resources that go from the wealthy to the "rest of us". The same can be said for loyalty cards. The one who can afford not to use loyalty card will earn the shop more profit (because no discount), meaning that it can offer bigger discounts to others. It is as if a unit of privacy is proportional to your wealth. The amount of privacy a rich man will get by paying $1000, a poor man can get it for $1. In the same way that it is much cheaper to secure a penny than a gold bar, because no one will want to steal your penny.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  > The one who can afford not to use loyalty card will earn the shop more profit (because no discount), meaning that it can offer bigger discounts to others. I don't use loyalty cards, but I don't pay more because of it. There still exist stores that don't have them, and my observation is that the regular prices on those stores are about the same as the "loyalty card discount" price at other stores. The "discount" you're getting with a loyalty card is a sham. The regular prices were just bumped up to give the illusion of a discount. More to the point, though, the issue I see with your analysis is that you're assuming that privacy has a single value. My privacy is worth just as much to me as a wealthy person's privacy is to them. That others value them differently is unimportant. The cost of the loss of that privacy is the same regardless of income, but only the wealthy have a way to minimize that loss without going to extreme measures.
  - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
unstatedAnswers 5y ago
Then your private shopper gets tracked. It’s just a pointer to your actual self, like how a “ghost account” gets created on Facebook or Google, when you browse in incognito
fuihggyfdd 5y ago
I don't see the inherent dilemma without establishing the impact towards quality of life. The price of yachts also entrenches this same divide but I hardly care since my access to yahts isn't a big concern. In the same manner, the only people whose QoL suffers from this sort of disparity seems to be activists and the people who buy into their fearmongering. Where's the real damage?

beambot 5y ago

Unless your private shopper is paying cash, your privacy is probably still illusive.

reedjosh 5y ago
You'll get no argument from me. :)

cronix 5y ago

> But an even more direct example is skipping the discounts associated with club cards for privacy reasons. Right, but most still pay with a credit/debit card when checking out which gives the cc/bank the same info. At least with a store club card they only know what you purchase in that store/chain, instead of every store.

reedjosh 5y ago
> Right, but most still pay with a credit/debit card when checking out which gives the cc/bank the same info. Yes, which is why I think cash is crucial until/if we get a digital equivalent. > At least with a store club card they only know what you purchase in that store/chain, instead of every store I haven't done research to confirm, but I'm guessing club card data ends up in the hands of data brokers at some point. Of course this probably varies by chain.
- kyleee 5y ago
  There will never be a state sanctioned privacy enabling digital cash equivalent since the data surrounding transactions is far too valuable (both in a monetary sense and in a social control sense). I'm sure the phrase "digital cash" will be used in the marketing lingo though
  - reedjosh 5y ago
    I agree. I like Monero, but it will never be state sanctioned. I don't much care for the state.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
I bet if I asked the people I know (many who earn enough to not need the discounts) if they would rather spend 1% less on their groceries and let go of their grocery purchase data, or if they would spend 1% more and keep their purchase history private, almost everyone would choose to voluntarily give it up and spend 1% less.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  Now imagine if that number is 5%+ -> i'm sure many many people would give it up!
rootusrootus 5y ago
I'm guessing this is why many grocery stores don't allow NFC payments, except for (in my area at least) Safeway, whose non-club pricing is so punitive that most people just knuckle under and get the card. Though I just use 867-5309 anyway. Works in every area code, AFAICT.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  "Forgot card" often works too!
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    That's good to know. Another trick I used to use was just to tell the cashier that I forgot my card, and she'd grab a spare and swipe it. Then they started doing phone numbers, so that probably doesn't work as well now.
    - dabbledash 5y ago
      $local_area_code-867-5309 is almost always registered. No reason to sign up for your own card.
      - mellavora 5y ago
        Jenny, is that you?
- kevinmgranger 5y ago
  How do NFC payments relate to it?
- kube-system 5y ago
  I was at a self-checkout recently that required a store rewards membership to checkout at. I tried 867-5309 but form validation required both a phone number and a last name. I guess retailers are catching on.

munificent 5y ago

The industrial revolution divided the world into those who had capital (owned factories, tools, land, etc.) and those who produced labor (worked in the factories, used the tools, worked the land, etc.). Those on the side of labor couldn't provide value without access to capital where it could be used. Conversely, those with capital need labor to extract value from it. The factories don't run themselves. In theory, this would balance out and lead towards some level of equality. In practice, the high barrier of entrance and smaller numbers on the side of capital made it much easier for them to drive down labor prices and exploit. That led to massive inequality—think robber barons and the like—which in turn eventually led to the organized labor movement. We are now recapitulating this historic arc in the information revolution. Now the world is divided into those who own data and those who produce it. Large corporations own giant fields of data and the computing technology required to derive actionable information from it. Everyone else gives up their personal data and attention to feed those enormous machines. This has led to the growing inequality that is causing a breakdown in institutional trust and is driving people out of cities that are increasingly affordable only to the elites who run the data factories. At some point, we will hopefully have an "organized data movement" where people work together to be able to make effective demands about how their data can be harvested and used. We aren't there yet.

fennecfoxen 5y ago
> The industrial revolution divided the world into those who had capital (owned factories, tools, land, etc.) and those who produced labor (worked in the factories, used the tools, worked the land, etc.). Don't be silly. The world was divided long before the Industrial Revolution, and if "labor" was ever on top of things, it was for fleeting moments. What changed with the Industrial Revolution was the collection of economic power in the hands of a mere titan of industry — instead of some baron, or prince, or caesar, or warlord, or chieftan, or other political personage.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  Very true. We are witnessing how a new aristocracy is being built. This time it’s not based on skills in warfare but around business skills. But the result is the same: you have a small group who thinks they are better than others and deserve to receive the vast majority of the profits society creates. And they manipulate the game to their advantage. This seems to happen in all societies until a revolution happens and the cycle starts anew just with different actors.

oramit 5y ago

Why should I care to keep what I buy at the grocery store private? I'm not trying to be flippant with this question. I'm just honestly perplexed why this is an important dateset to keep private. Also, why would I want to avoid discounts? Grocery stores are one of the few places that gives me money for handing them my data. Isn't this good behavior!?

nonfamous 5y ago
What you buy at a grocery store can reveal a lot about you: - Personal care products: gender - Medications: age/health of you and family members - Magazines/media: political affiliation, social class The list goes on. [Edit: formatting]
- psychomugs 5y ago
  This always reminds me of the anecdote of Target predicting pregnant customers and "outing" them before they or their family knows [1]. Really makes one consider using cash. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits....
  - slg 5y ago
    >before they or their family knows To be clear, it is before their family knows and not before they know. It is extremely difficult to figure out someone is pregnant before they know. It doesn't take any complex analysis to see someone purchasing prenatal vitamins and conclude they are pregnant.
- slg 5y ago
  I guess this is an answer to the question but it doesn't answer the motivation behind the question. Why should we care about these things being public? You can tell my gender and rough age by looking at me for a second. If you want to keep those private your grocery store is the least of your concerns.
- oramit 5y ago

metters 5y ago

I believe even with resources it won’t be possible to evade that. Gait recognition can even recognize a person that pretends to walk like a different person or being hurt - at least that is what I heard last time about this technology.

GuB-42 5y ago

This may actually close the class divide a little. The thing with privacy is the more wealthy you are, the more valuable it is. For example, if I want to sell something, I will want to target the wealthiest first. Same thing for scammers, and newspapers will follow celebrities. Who care about the poor, there is no money to extract from them. So let's get back to the private shopper. A rich and famous man will want to hire a private shopper, because he knows that if he is found in a shop, he will be bothered by people who are after his money and fame. His privacy is worth a lot, to him and to others. The private shopper is likely to be of a more modest status, he can go shopping without being bothered, he may be tracked by robots and end up with personalized ads, be part of some statistics, whatever, but no one will stop him for an autograph or some special favor. So when the rich man pays the private shopper, with a little extra for his discretion, that's resources that go from the wealthy to the "rest of us". The same can be said for loyalty cards. The one who can afford not to use loyalty card will earn the shop more profit (because no discount), meaning that it can offer bigger discounts to others. It is as if a unit of privacy is proportional to your wealth. The amount of privacy a rich man will get by paying $1000, a poor man can get it for $1. In the same way that it is much cheaper to secure a penny than a gold bar, because no one will want to steal your penny.

JohnFen 5y ago
> The one who can afford not to use loyalty card will earn the shop more profit (because no discount), meaning that it can offer bigger discounts to others. I don't use loyalty cards, but I don't pay more because of it. There still exist stores that don't have them, and my observation is that the regular prices on those stores are about the same as the "loyalty card discount" price at other stores. The "discount" you're getting with a loyalty card is a sham. The regular prices were just bumped up to give the illusion of a discount. More to the point, though, the issue I see with your analysis is that you're assuming that privacy has a single value. My privacy is worth just as much to me as a wealthy person's privacy is to them. That others value them differently is unimportant. The cost of the loss of that privacy is the same regardless of income, but only the wealthy have a way to minimize that loss without going to extreme measures.
- 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

unstatedAnswers 5y ago

Then your private shopper gets tracked. It’s just a pointer to your actual self, like how a “ghost account” gets created on Facebook or Google, when you browse in incognito

fuihggyfdd 5y ago

I don't see the inherent dilemma without establishing the impact towards quality of life. The price of yachts also entrenches this same divide but I hardly care since my access to yahts isn't a big concern. In the same manner, the only people whose QoL suffers from this sort of disparity seems to be activists and the people who buy into their fearmongering. Where's the real damage?