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