Dossiers and Customer Courtesy Cards

[Mike Rosing]

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