Posted on 10/01/2005 9:58:55 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
Katherine Albrecht, founder of CASPIAN, a consumer group fighting against supermarket 'loyalty' cards, will join Liz McIntyre to share an update on Radio Frequency Identification products (RFID). Related site:
I don't think the purpose of the cards is capitalism. We're still going to buy the groceries and I still fall for advertising. This is about privacy.
Name: George W Bush Address: 1600 Penn. Ave, Wash., DC.
They can try to push to me all they want. I use my two cards (one for albertson's and one for a Kroger's company called Smith's) gleefully, and throw all literature mailed to me away...
The religious groups I donate to (mostly CRS) don't seem to shop their lists around.
Although one of the clothes stores I mailorder from must trade lists...all of a sudden, I'm getting Victoria's Secrets catalogs.
I find paper spam less troubling and easier to deal with than electronic, though. The Circular File (a/k/a file 13, or even the trash can) is a wonderful tool...
If anyone is interested in the fact that I buy lots of Genisoy Soy Chips, well, more power to them.
Me too.
I'll buy a copy today if you will!!
I met a top private investigator a few years ago who specializes in chasing down embezzlers who move to Brazil, get plastic surgery and new i.d., etc. He told me that using the info from "Little Brother" he can usually locate his perp in about 15 minutes! If you are worried about privacy, just give them false info. I laugh my head off when I get mail addressed to Sir Archibald Shagnaster Pendington XXIII, CEO of BioBull.
Wasn't it that FBI office in Arizona that was making similar references to our loyal citizens? Whatever became of the supposed investigation into why that office seemed so confused as to who the real enemies are?
Those companies put time, effort and money into loyalty cards just to invade your privacy? I don't think so.
I do not think that their shareholders are going to be impressed by an annual report that says, "we spent 10 million dollars to invade the privacy of 100 million customers but we did not make any extra money."
What the investors would be impressed by is when they say, "we spent 10 million dollars on our loyalty card program and earned an extra 100 million dollars in revenue."
Insurance companies are in business to make money. If your eating, smoking habits or exercise habits are going to cost them money, they want to know it so they can charge you the appropriate risk premium. On the other hand, if you lead a healthy life they want to be able to attract your business by offering you higher coverage for lower premiums.
It is nothing personal, it is just good business.
Didn't matter that I didn't look like a monk. The teenybopper meathead still took the application.
I remember a test known as Stanine or Sta-9 which was given to prospective airline pilots and probably other types of job applicants. My understanding, perhaps incorrect, was that there were a bunch of apparently random questions, which in themselves were meaningless, but profiles had been developed by psychologists based on the overall pattern of answers given by previous test-takers who had turned out to be successful at whatever job they were hired for. This was actually about 30 or more years ago as I recall, long before number-crunching computers were common. But pilots I knew really sweated the thing, looked for crib sheets and so on.
and a Ruger mini-30.
The other day, I went to fill up, and the clerk wanted me to write my phone number down on the card (there was a place on it, which I had previously ignored). I immediately made a number up in my head, and wrote it down. They have no reason to have my phone number.
I find paper spam less troubling and easier to deal with than electronic, though. The Circular File (a/k/a file 13, or even the trash can) is a wonderful tool...
Yeah, but I'd bet some things don't go into that file too quickly... if there's a mister around...;>)
You're right --- without the cards, the prices are much higher.
This is why mama gets the mail. I used to have to hide my fashion mags from the teenager sometimes....
My little way of throwing a spanner into their works.
I prefer to snarl (politely) than even pretend to be a sheep. I've caused many clerks to pause and consider the WHY behind their companies' requesting the locator info of customers.
I should probably get a new card (mine's showing some wear) and exchange ASAP with another Food Lion customer.
Very interesting you should say that about insurance, because it represents a dramatic paradigm shift from the way insurance has been done for more than 200 years.
Insurance has always been about spreading the risk as thin as possible. In any population there's going to be a certain number of people who have their hearts blow out at fifty and another number who live until 90. The ones who live until 90 pay the premiums that pay off for the guy who drops dead at 50. Insurance companies figured out roughly how many of each group existed and set their policies accordingly.
Now, through technology, they are able to say to the guy with the bad ticker, "Hey sorry pal, you're a bad risk. We'll pass on your business."
But what if they crunch the data even more? Some poor slob is sitting at home eating healthy, not smoking, and going to the gym three days a week. But his father, two uncles and a brother all dropped dead at fifty from bad tickers. Genetic predispostion. "Sorry pal, the males in your family drop like flies."
Basically what this is leading up to is a health rating, much like a credit rating and it will effect if people are hired for jobs, get loans, even who they marry, once people start believing in them.
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