They're watching your every move, from the moment you drive into their parking lots until the moment you drive out.
The stores say that they are watching you "for research", like you're some kind of goddammed critter in a rainforest somewhere.
Sure they are.
Here's what is coming down the road: You walk into a one of the large-chain retailers. You buy something with a credit card. A camera at the register records that transaction and now they have your name, address and what you look like. If they get your e-mail address, then the next time you go to the store and look at something, but don't buy it, you might get a targeted e-mail offer.
But it'll all go into some huge-ass database somewhere and if there is anything that we have learned during the Chimpy Administration, it is that if the retailers assemble databases, the feds will get access to them.
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3 comments:
1) Pay cash for everything. It took a while to get used to, but that's what I've started doing.
2) Lie a lot. There's no law that says you have to give your address to Radio Shack. Sometimes they enter the fake address I give them into the computer and the computer tells them it isn't real. That's when I get in their face and tell them yeah, it's fake, and I only gave it to them because I was trying to be polite, but if they want to make an issue of it I'll take my business elsewhere.
3) Retaliate. If you think a store has stepped over the line, you need to vote with your feet. Yeah, some other place might cost a little more, but you can't put a price on freedom, can you?
4) Remember, the store has precisely zero legal power over you once you make your purchase. If the alarm goes off as you're leaving that's their problem. They want to check your bag on the way out, ask to see a warrant. They get hostile about it, you get hostile right back and demand that they call a police officer if they think you've done something wrong.
Computers are not our friends. The average US citizen is now more closely monitored than the East Germans were. The fact that it's being done by private parties instead of the government is no comfort. At least not to me.
Maybe Wal-Mart should spend more time watching who uses the store intercom.
I like to put on a show for them. When they pull that stunt about raising the price on the big bag, I make a big deal of pulling a calculator out of my pocket and then buying the smaller, cheaper one.
In my dreams, I have a big "DNFW" next to my consumer profile.
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