Posted on 10/21/2018 12:47:45 AM PDT by vannrox
Walmart has plenty of haters. But for many consumers, Walmart's prices just can't be beat. You can't afford to be choosy when you're on a tight budget.
If price is not so much of a concern for you, what if you discovered that Walmart wants your personal data? And not just data about your shopping behavior, which we already give hand over fist to Amazon in the name of fast shipping.
Walmart is interested in what's going on in your body while you shop.
The company wants to collect this data is a particularly creepy way: through the handles of its shopping carts. Walmart recently submitted a patent to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office called "System and Method for a Biometric Feedback Cart Handle," CBInsights reports.
These innovative shopping cart handles would collect your biometric data, meaning your stress level, your body temperature, and heart rate -- all while you're strolling through the aisles of your local store, filling your cart with Walmart's everyday low-priced items. Putting a positive spin on data collection
Walmart is wisely putting a positive spin on why it wants to collect shoppers' biometric data.
Say someone was unwell while shopping in one of the Walmart stores. Their pulse becomes erratic or their temperature drastically changes. The shopping cart handle would transmit this info in real time to a server, which would then notify a Walmart associate to go check on the person.
That sounds awfully altruistic for Walmart. It's probably not the only reason America's largest retailer wants to collect information about what's happening inside the minds and bodies of consumers while they shop. How Walmart could spin this to its benefit
Internet retailers already excel at targeting us for products they know we want to buy because of our online shopping behavior. It's not so easy to gather data about your preferences while you shop in brick-and-mortar stores.
But what if Walmart could see if your heart rate increases when you pass a new display? What if the company could see it drop when you walk by another? This technology would essentially monitor how customers are feeling while they shop. Walmart could then use that data to optimize the design of its stores for ultimate feel-good vibes. Or to entice people to stay in its stores for a few minutes longer, which is the tried-and-true way to get people to spend more.
Though the creepy shopping cart handle doesn't exist yet, it's not hard to imagine it quickly coming to fruition if the patent is approved. Similar technology already exists on treadmills, which have sensors in handles that can gather your heart rate.
The technology itself isn't inherently bad. Intent matters. Even when the purpose of certain technologies is good, bad actors can still use them for not-so-good purposes. Is Walmart a good actor or bad actor? Up to you to decide.
I have the right to take my pocket Degausser anywhere I like. They might want to keep a good cart mechanic handy.
I have to get milk at the store today...
When I got my MBA I wrote almost every paper on Walmart. Walmart is not only a data-driven company, it publishes that data. For example, at that time, the average newly hired Walmart associate was middle-aged and had never had another full time job. (In Tallahassee, it seems the average Walmart worker is black and just out of high school.)
It used to be that the driver of upward mobility was manufacturing. Just about anybody could get a grunt job in manufacturing and, through grit and persistence, make a good living in manufacturing by climbing the ranks. The flood of regulations (and other causes) drove small manufacturing offshore and removed the ladder. That ladder is now Walmart. If I recall, the turnover is fifty percent, but those associates leave after about 18 months. They now have a work history and have been trained on how to deal with customers.
Walmart is one of very few grocery stores that doesn't have 2 sets of prices. Most of the major grocery chains have some sort of "VIP" card that you have to use to get the lower of the 2 prices. This allows these stores to track every purchase you make. Walmart doesn't do that: They are a much less creepy grocery store, IMO.
Shopping in tge twightlight zone.
“How many people are going to go to that kind of trouble to thwart Big Brother?”
Well, when Hong Kong started with the biometric data, including a thumbprint on the smart ID cards I spent about 10 days before my appointment sanding down the tips of my fingers and thumbs with an emery cloth so that I’d not have any fingerprints.
The appointment was really fun when they couldn’t get any fingerprints.
Sometimes causing trouble is fun!
WRONG! The fix is to shop somewhere else.
Shopping carts take a serious beating over time - could become expensive...I wonder how many will; track homeless folks wheeling their possessions down the shoulder of the road.
WalMart could learn plenty from the bio-film that customer’s hands have already left behind on the old shopping cart handles. Why are they getting new ones?
“I spent about 10 days before my appointment sanding down the tips of my fingers and thumbs”
Later in my worklife I was hired for a job that required fingerprinting. It took forever to get the prints. For many years I’d been a secretary and handled a lot of paper. I was told that wears down the fingerprints.
I wonder if these new cart handles can read a shopper’s reaction to the store’s music. If they’re playing new (after 1990) stuff or elevator music, I do my business quickly and hot-foot it out of the store. If disco or jukebox, I’ll be there all day.
Pay cash. Carry super magnets.
“But what if Walmart could see if your heart rate increases when you pass a new display? What if the company could see it drop when you walk by another? This technology would essentially monitor how customers are feeling while they shop.”
What if they could see how pissed off you get when they rearrange all the grocery aisles every freaking 6 months.
You just get used to items being in one location in the store and BAM!...some retard relocates everything to opposite ends of the store.
What would they learn? Low prices are good? Or I am so hot for that meat in the deli!
does walmart have a lot of customers having life events in the store (heart attacks, blood sugar crash, birth, etc)?
or is this to smoke out the sketchy shoplifters who are stressed as they stroll the aisles, looking for an opportunity to snag something?
Big Brother's privatized corporate spy agency.
The Cousin Oliver of the deep state
#BeSeeingYou
That’s a whole herd of cows!
Homeless pushing wallmart carts around town.
They’d do better with lojac.
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