On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, Tim May wrote: > * I expect most uses of "customer courtesy cards" are to try to get > some kind of brand loyalty going. People thinking "Well, I have a card > at Albertson's, but not at Safeway, so I'll go to Albertson's."
They'd love that, but know better. > * Dossier-compiling does not seem to be the motivation...at least not > yet. The data are too sparse, it seems to me. I don't know if people > who "honestly" gave a name and mailing address, and whose data were > keypunched accurately, are getting the "targeted mailings" for Midol, > Attends, Trojans, etc. that the technology can support. Well, my wife has gotten 2 (!) flower pots for being the "in top 10 spenders" at our local grocery store. They delivered to our door. Couldn't do that if it wasn't a real address. They do print out coupons based on products purchased - they try to get you to buy competitors brands. I don't know how much the competitors pay for this service, but it's definitly tied into purchase patterns. What will Ridge do with that info? Who knows, but it ain't good. > * Dossier compiling at grocery stores is not very useful for Big > Brother, either. Who consumes Midol, Attends, Trojans, etc. is not > interesting even to George Bush and Dick Cheney. And few hardware or > electrical supply stores have courtesy cards. In any case, no > requirement to use cards, etc. But we have a military division devoted to psychowar. I would assume they'd use brand and product tracing to get a handle on how to freak people out. > * All in all, not a very interesting example of ID and tracking. Things > will get much more interesting, and worrisome, if there is ever a > national ID system (in the U.S.) and some kind of legislated > requirement (albeit unconstitutional!) that citizen-units must ID > themselves with valid ID for all purchases, or at least of certain > classes of purchases (beyond guns, for example). > > I don't see this happening in the next 15 years unless some major new > terrorist incident occurs. It will. The dictatorship isn't quite as complete as they'd like. Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike