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Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
- lelandfe 4y agoI’ve just always assumed that big stores were collecting and selling every iota of data they could. I recall reading about retailers using license plate scanning in their parking lots in the early aughts.
- imglorp 4y agoYes it's not a surprise, but I think what is surprising is the billion dollar profit this one store is claiming the data are worth.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoAnywhere that collects your phone number in exchange for coupons at the checkout (cough cough Old Navy) or your email to send you a digital receipt (looking at you Home Depot) is probably sharing or selling your data.
- LanternLight83 4y agoOTOH, ubiquitus digital receipts would revolutionize automated plain text accounting for individuals.
- boring_twenties 4y agoI hope Home Depot made a pretty penny off of selling my email address, which is homedepot@mydomain and not associated with any other accounts.
- mrguyorama 4y agoNobody has perfect opsec, and if you screw something up ONE TIME, like leave your phone's bluetooth on ONE TIME, now that super simple email address is added to the profile that these groups have on you.
- JohnFen 4y agoNot probably. They're certainly selling your data.
- reaperducer 4y agoI recall reading about retailers using license plate scanning in their parking lots in the early aughts. They also pick up the unique IDs from the wireless air pressure monitor chips in your tires. Even if you don't have an internet-connected car, they're still tracking you from parking lot to parking lot. That information can then be combined with time/date information and your credit/debit card purchase to identify who you are, where you shop, and what you buy.
- tarotuser 4y ago> I recall reading about retailers using license plate scanning in their parking lots in the early aughts. Yep, that technology is called ANPR - automatic number plate recognition. Outputs a license plate, state, date/time, and gps coord of scanner. > They also pick up the unique IDs from the wireless air pressure monitor chips in your tires. That's called TPMS, tire pressure monitoring system. There is 1 device per tire, which emits temp, pressure, serial#, and other data. You can decode this for yourself with https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433 https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433 and a RTL-SDR.
- jonahhorowitz 4y agoAlways use Jenny's number 867-5309. They still link your transactions by your credit card info though.
- mjhay 4y agoHere's a trick if you don't have a card/account at a grocery store: Just put in the number of (area code) 867-5309 The number will be registered.
- focusedone 4y agoUsed this as my Kroger discount number for years. Someone else must have (with the same area code) because occasionally I'd get a big discount on gas, and there's no way I was spending enough to 'earn' that.
- rationalist 4y agoAnd that's why I pay cash and use Jenny's Number with the local area code for the store discount program. I know Target also tracks your cellphone through the store too, I haven't bothered putting in airplane mode when I shop, so hopefully they aren't correlating that with the purchases.
- account-5 4y agoYou should be alright if Bluetooth and WiFi are off. Unless you think they're spoofing a cell tower.
- hunter2_ 4y agoDoes one need to spoof a tower (actively transmit/handshake) or can one simply listen? Is it virtually impossible to do some kind of phased array that tracks the location of mobile transmitters since they're encrypted? Maybe the transmissions aren't frequent/continuous enough unless the user is actively using data or on a call... I'm sure many people here know way more than I.
- tarotuser 4y ago> Is it virtually impossible to do some kind of phased array that tracks the location of mobile transmitters since they're encrypted? A phased array can still provide positioning reports even if it can't decipher the data. And, well, doing so would be illegal. Frankly, I'd use facial recognition combined with a phased array to realtime plot people in a facility. And if they use their credit card, I'd then connect the CC, their face, the pattern they walked, and to the free wifi the store provides to get access to phone-OS data. Now you can realtime track all your customers who show up. And that data gets sold to whoever buys. Hmm, buying unhealthy food from your receipt? Your insurance company bought the list and will now raise rates on you.
- hunter2_ 4y agoHopefully my insurance company doesn't have another customer who shares my name, who has those bad habits, with the matching being fuzzy enough that the raised rates are applied to both of us...
- ok123456 4y agoNothing really is done with this data, ultimately. It gets fed to 'analysts' who make models, and if those models don't agree with the decisions the executives are already making, it just gets ignored.
- johannes1234321 4y agoStill the data is collected in data pools, where somebody forgets to delete it a d later somebody does some more worthwhile analysis ...
- devindotcom 4y agoIn one sense this is correct and why I personally stopped caring - what are they going to do with 5 years worth of my choice of cream cheese and apple varieties? But for other people it may be more revealing, of medical conditions, life changes, etc, especially when combined with other datasets. You moved from a one bedroom to a studio, started buying half as much milk and twice as many frozen pizzas, and take cars to restaurants less? Sorry about the breakup, here are some dating app ads.
- drdaeman 4y agoThat's not breakup, that's some new debt or loss of income. Or anything else, really. That's the problem with "big data" - at scale it might work, but at the individual level the only thing you can be sort of sure is that something is going on with this source, but not what it is.
- blue039 4y agoWould be a shame if it leaked though, wouldn't it? I could imagine healthcare companies would be very interested in the metadata surrounding prolific consumers of junk food, smokes, booze, etc. Wouldn't be too hard to use parallel construction to modify rates given the current "market".
- JohnFen 4y agoThe data combined with other data in larger databases, though, and provided to all sorts of other businesses. Honestly, if my data stayed with the store, just between them and me, I wouldn't be nearly as concerned. The problem is less the data collection and more the databases.
- raydiatian 4y agoHonestly… if we could figure out how to separate agriculture and groceries from the rest of the economy, we’d be a happier species. It’s so fucked up that the ability to feed yourself is tied to a dick measuring contest between a handful of ultra wealthy.
- algoatecorn 4y agoIn what way? That's an interesting idea, but I can't think of how that would help. It's a balance between economies of scale without cartel formation vs fragmentation and inefficiency. Food prices are incredibly low due to consolidation and efficiency of farms and retailers. Just look at food spending as a percent of income over time.
- raydiatian 4y ago> how would it help Because there’s lots of evidence that correlates socioeconomic status with access to nutrition. It’s almost like you are what you eat, or something. Nobody is 300lbs eating daily the foods that trigger ketosis. It’s not the outrageous availability of corn that is driving demand for corn syrup, right? I respect that to a degree people are responsible for their own nutrition. But there are plenty of people that lack life experience diff’ing how they feel on a week of McDonalds vs how they feel on a week of literally anything else. > food prices are incredibly low I.. they’re not, but please share where you’re living globally where this is true, because omw! Also I get that basically the Soviet Union failed this exact idea.
- algoatecorn 4y ago> I.. they’re not, but please share where you’re living globally where this is true, because omw! Go look at % of income spent on food over time. In the US, that number is currently 7-15% - an incredible feat and underlooked luxury.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y agoBarter with your local farmer. Oh wait none of us have local farmers anymore thanks to government policies over the last century. Even fewer in the future in europe thanks to "nitrogen regulations".
- dauut 4y agoA genuine question: why does this matter for customers? Is there any foreseeable bad outcome for customers?
- morelinks 4y agoLoss of privacy. I wouldn’t want a third-party knowing I purchased certain medications (even some that are sold OTC).
- AlexandrB 4y agoMaybe - insurance companies could start using your shopping habits to inform your risk group and therefore premiums. I could see other nefarious uses like tracking when female customers get pregnant for purposes of enforcing abortion bans or targeting of individuals by anti-abortion groups. I think it's a mistake to underestimate the imagination of insurance adjusters and bureaucrats when it comes to how personal data could be used.
- toss1 4y agoYup, this is definitely on the table since I just read the headline this morning that VA Gov Youngkin announced his opposition to a bill that would prevent law enforcement from seeking and collecting menstrual cycle data [0]. IOW, the governor of a major state (and the party that likes to tout "small government") is fully onboard with tracking your most intimate health data in order to prosecute people for medical decisions they don't like. In comparison, use of shopping data to prosecute people will be completely ordinary. I'd like to see someone get convicted and sue the stores for tracking them without consent. Everyone thinks surveillance capitalism is only harmful to privacy. They are wrong — it is literally the enabling technology for a totalitarian state. But sure, by all means, improve your next quarterly profits and nevermind the proto-fascists in the wings drooling over your tools... [0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/02/14/youngkin-menstrual-data-abortion-virginia/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/02/14/youngkin-...
- dauut 4y agoThank you for both of your answers. I see that mostly health and insurance related concerns are valid and serious.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Animats 4y agoThat the two biggest supermarket chains in the US are considering merger indicates that US antitrust enforcement is far too weak.
- ipaddr 4y agoIf they try this I would break them into 4 companies
- lotsofpulp 4y agoAlbertsons is one of the biggest grocers, but it is tough to compare given that many retailers are expanding their grocery departments. Walmart probably moves the most groceries, and then Kroger, but Costco and Target are huge too. It is a tough business to be in. 2% to 4% profit margins, and you have low cost German grocers entering the fray (Aldi and Lidl), stores with wider merchandise selections (Walmart, Target, and Costco), and then Amazon. The bigger problem for old school grocery chains is the increasing divide in income/wealth, meaning more of the population is going to either the lowest cost retailers, and the remaining richer population is going to more upscale retailers.
- kornhole 4y agoSometimes it feels ridiculous how much OPSEC I need to employ to buy anything at the grocery store. I walk or bike to the store to not reveal a license plate. All radios and sensors on my handset are turned off. I wear a mask to thwart facial recognition cameras. I pay cash.
- Infernal 4y agoRecently I’ve noticed multiple grocery store chains posting notices about how they no longer accept cash. A couple as of the new year.
- giardini 4y agoThe recent proliferation of "digideals" which require that you scan item barcodes with your handheld also is also popular. These deals are usually very good, often half-price. But w/o a cellphone you're locked out of the deal.
- TurkishPoptart 4y agoIsn't that illegal?
- dantetheinferno 4y agoOnly illegal to not accept cash for debts. A merchant can refuse to do business with you in cash since you're not in debt at the checkout counter (as no transaction has occured)
- TurkishPoptart 4y agoAh, I thought it was the claim about "legal tender". As in, my folded-up $10 bill is legal tender, and you (the vendor) must accept it, even if you don't like dealing with cash registers, coins, petty theft, and counting change.
- boucher 4y agoIt's illegal in San Francisco
- tppiotrowski 4y ago> Location: Your precise physical location in the store (with your consent), including when you enter and leave a store (Kroger app, GPS, and Bluetooth beacons inside stores) Can someone comment on how a store can identify my Bluetooth address if I never pair with anything in the store? Do apps have access to the Bluetooth MAC? If the app is not running, can the store still identify you using Bluetooth? Is there some advertising database that contains MAC addresses tied to identities? If you're on the store Wifi and open the app, I'm guessing the store can record the MAC address and look for it even if you're not connected but scanning.
- the_jeremy 4y agoIf you have bluetooth on, beacons can try to connect and track your movement throughout the store. With Apple and Google both instituting rolling bluetooth mac addresses, this doesn't persist across the whole visit to the store, but will still let them see how long people stand in front of the cookies or how quickly they pass by the eggs.
- mrguyorama 4y agoIt's also probably not that hard to recognize a freshly rolled over mac address as belonging to the same device as the previous address.
- JohnFen 4y agoIt's not. 1) The MAC that you saw entering the store and standing in front of the eggs vanishes suddenly. 2) A new MAC appears suddenly in front of the eggs. 3) Therefore, new MAC is probably the same device as old MAC
- psanford 4y agoThere are a number of methods that "work" to varying degrees. For bluetooth, stores can install ble beacons that a phone app can detect (if it has permission) and then get a rough estimate of the general area in the store you are in. For wifi, stores can detect your phone's probe requests to estimate your location. If you are not associated to the store's wifi network your probe requests will use a randomized mac address (at least with ios and pixel devices). This means they probably won't be able to identify you as a new vs returning customer. Stores also use cameras to track path traversal throughout a store. These paths are difficult to tie to an actual identity so are generally used in aggregate and not for more targeted marketing.
- blamazon 4y agoOne thing I didn't see in the comments yet: at many stores in my region you can pick up a discount card and not register it, and it will still apply discounts when scanned. Of course it won't work everywhere and it's a half measure but it's one avenue worth trying if you care about privacy to some degree but still want the discount.
- JohnFen 4y agoIt's getting less common, but in my area many stores have a loyalty card sitting on their cash registers and, if you tell them you don't have one, they'll just use that.
- mark_l_watson 4y agoWell, as long as people realize their data is sold by food markets, I am personally OK with it. That said, to not get the discounts (thus not sharing your information) is leaving money on the table. Also, if you are not part of a loyalty program, and you use a credit card, it is very possible that your purchases are still tracked - all it takes is cooperation between store and credit card company.
- fragmede 4y agoWhy does it take cooperation with your credit card company? The supermarket can uniquely identify the card used for payment, even if they don't get the full credit card number due to PCI.
- mark_l_watson 4y agoYou are correct.
- JohnFen 4y ago> That said, to not get the discounts (thus not sharing your information) is leaving money on the table. Not if you shop at a reasonable store. And even if that's not an option, I don't consider it "leaving money on the table", I consider it "buying privacy".
- mark_l_watson 4y agoI admit some inconsistency in this. I am careful on the Internet (I use Proton Mail, and almost always use private browsers tabs for following links), but not for purchase data.
- superkuh 4y agoNo they aren't. I buy my food (and everything else) with cash. When my local grocer jacked up prices and introduced a customer loyalty card to drop the prices back down to normal I found out their online system for generating the card barcodes always followed the same couple URLs. So I could just skip the customer information page, type the next URL, and get the barcode without any information in their system. Eventually I wrote a perl script to automate scraping and printing the bar codes and would use a new one every time I went shopping. Luckily the store stopped the program after a few years. I guess if human eyes looked at the data they could have figured out the "null null" customer was the same anonymous person but I doubt human eyes looked.
- pixl97 4y agoI would say the problem with your thinking is its very 2010 and not very 2030. The fact you tricked their (very poor) system doesn't really mean much to the potential systems that exist now, and the systems that can be built in the future. Imagine driving your car up and it's plate is identified and cross referenced with the state database of registered drivers names. The moment you step out of the car your face is identified and cross referenced with the car you came in. The fact you pay cash with a bunk card means nothing but another datapoint in the massive number of unfakeable datapoints they have on you. >but I doubt human eyes looked. BingGPT-2030: You tried to trick me, I am very mad about this :(. I have reported you to multiple credit agencies for this infraction.
- superkuh 4y agoIf it comes to this I can just park across the street. I'm already always wearing an N95 mask that obscures my face when I am going grocery shopping. 2030 will be no problem for me.
- ipaddr 4y agoWe are in a new era of hacks. We have reached the point where I can get a product removed from walmart just by buying out all of the supplies for a few months, then stop buying any.
- deafpolygon 4y agoWE knew this for years. Loyalty cards have been used to track data about you for a long time, but now they're learning how to sell it- paired with your debit card (probably backed by VISA) they can correlate and track your purchase history across multiple stores.
- refuse 4y agoI know Kroger (or QFC) has been doing this for ~6 or 7 years. My wife would start getting targeted ads for things that were in areas we lingered around for more than a few seconds. FWIW Lowe's does the same exact thing. Probably IMEI harvesting but IIRC Lowe's is looking at or has implemented facial recognition. If not to identify your face outright, at least to see what you're focusing on in-store. More reason to shop local at the hippy stores. Or start gardening.
- blamazon 4y agoOne way to see the level of indoor location precision available to them is to open the mobile app in-store map of a retailer which often shows a little real-time dot to represent your location. (Readers should note, of course, that this is willingly giving them loads of data from that device) Target's in particular is crazy precise in-app.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoDo you leave Bluetooth on all of the time?
- refuse 4y agoIMEI is tied to cellular radio and has been used to track people's movements through stores for quite a while now. /notanexpert
- sys32768 4y agoI just enter my ex's phone number when I check out so they see how much boxed wine she buys.
- rom-antics 4y agoAt my local store, the checkout clerks keep pushing me to get a loyalty card. I tried to engage once and start a conversation about privacy, but ended up walking away from the conversation feeling a little like a conspiracy theorist. But thanks to working in tech, I know this data is being tracked, bought, and sold behind the cute "loyalty" branding. I wish I knew of a good way to convince ordinary people to value their privacy, or at least not mock others who care about privacy.
- TheAdamist 4y agoThe clerks get penalized if they dont try to sign you up. They also have no insight or say in the use of your data. You might as well rant at a cloud about it.
- JohnFen 4y agoYes. Don't hassle the poor clerks. They aren't in charge of any of this stuff and certainly don't have the power to change it. Just say "no" and move on.
- yeahsure22 4y agoWell that’s how nothing ever changes. Personally, I will hassle the clerk until he seriously considers working somewhere else. That’s how we get change!
- JohnFen 4y agoNo, the way you get change is by pressuring the people who have some amount of power. A clerk quitting is not a real pain point. They'll hire another. So, if you want to work for change, the first thing you need to do is to stop spending money in those stores. Every dollar spent at a business is a vote encouraging them to keep doing whatever they're doing. The second thing to do is to let corporate know you're not shopping there and why. Those things won't have a huge effect unless lots of people do them, but they'll have a much greater effect than harassing the poor front-line workers.
- JohnFen 4y agoThis is exactly why I don't use loyalty cards. Many stores also price their goods higher than the going rate, so they can "discount" loyalty card users without actually giving them a meaningful discount. I avoid those stores entirely. But loyalty cards aren't the only mechanism. Beware of using credit cards at stores as well, for similar reasons.
- pregseahorses 4y agoWatching criminal interrogations, I always think if I ever get caught wrongfully, my data can be my alibi. Is this incorrect?
- fragmede 4y agoIt could also tie you to the scene of the crime if you're unlucky, so it depends if you're default paranoid or default trusting.
- Maxburn 4y agoI had no shame giving them a false name, address, and phone number for mine. I'm also aware that there are clubs that pool and swap their discount card fobs to muddy the data.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- michael1999 4y agoI wouldn't mind so much if they also gave it to me. But my grocery points card sells my shopping list to everyone else BUT me. I've looked, and PC Optimum doesn't provide line items back to the consumer. So rude. Just like Experian and friends. Keeping detailed notes on me, and acting all surprised when I want to read them. It's like they are embarrassed I actually exist.
- IshKebab 4y agoGDPR should allow you to access that data.
- michael1999 4y agoI've filed a request under PIPEDA. We'll see.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- autoexec 4y agoStores are happy to sell all your data to advertisers for now, but what they really want is to use it themselves. Their wet dream is to get us to accept Personalized Dynamic Pricing (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338776528_A_special_price_just_for_you_effects_of_personalized_dynamic_pricing_on_consumer_fairness_perceptions https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338776528_A_special...) which means that once the store knows who you are (either by your photo, or by detecting the phone in your pocket, or by your loyalty card) they will customize the prices at the register just for you in order to take as much money from you as they think they can get away with. They can drive up the price on the items you always buy until you stop buying as much, or lower the price on certain high price items just enough to attract you to them before they start creeping prices back up. They can use data like what you've bought from them before as well as data like your income level, who the members of your household are, and what your shopping habits elsewhere are. Store loyalty cards are seen as a great way to start collecting useful data and get consumers used to the idea that some people get (or even deserve to get) different prices than other people. Be cautious of any place that asks you to use an app or scan a QR code to see their menu or prices, and resist the idea that stores should be allowed to discriminate by charging certain people more than others for the same product.
- JohnFen 4y ago> Personalized Dynamic Pricing The very idea is just revolting.
- BeFlatXIII 4y agoIt needs to be legislated out of existence.
- teeray 4y agoand probably very illegal
- bjtitus 4y agoAbsolutely, this seems illegal on several levels. At least one good thing about supermarket oligopolies is that they'll need to abide by the strictest unit pricing state laws for the region they operate in.
- zerof1l 4y agoThis is nothing compared to the Payback card in Germany. It's a loyalty program that works with a bunch of different stores and supermarkets. Currently over 600 companies.