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Comment by wlesieutre | Hacker News Reader

RadioShack was really ahead of their time, what with trying to collect your phone number and address every time you come in to buy a pack of AA batteries.

Now with smartphones it's all automatic and much harder to say "no" to.

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Were they really that demanding? IIRC, the last time I was in one, all they wanted was a ZIP code, which was weird enough at the time.

Phone numbers I'm pretty sure about. It got joked about on Seinfeld https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgfaYKoQxzQ

Wikipedia claims that

>Until 2004, RadioShack routinely asked for the name and address of purchasers so they could be added to mailing lists. Name and mailing address were requested for special orders (RadioShack Unlimited parts and accessories, Direc2U items not stocked locally), returns, check payments, RadioShack Answers Plus credit card applications, service plan purchases and carrier activations of cellular telephones.

But that claim isn't sourced.

I worked at RadioShack in the late 90's. We had to ask for name, address, and phone number. It was just part of the transaction flow on the point of sale. If we got resistance, we could just put it under a "CASH CASH" customer. I vaguely remember telling customers "it's so they can send you our catalog". RadioShack sent out nice heavy catalogs each year, which many people liked. Sometimes if we were busy or just lazy, we'd just do that anyway. While my understanding was that it was primarily for marketing purposes, it was also useful in that we could pull up receipts by phone number (in case you lost yours), verify warranty/extended warranty status, etc.

And then when Radio Shack went bankrupt, it wanted to sell that information.

https://money.cnn.com/2015/06/10/news/companies/radioshack-c...

> The bankrupt chain originally proposed selling the information to raise money and repay creditors. But that sparked a backlash from suppliers including AT&T (T) and Apple (AAPL), as well as the Federal Trade Commission and consumer advocates who argued that the electronics retailer had promised customers it would protect their data.

> Most of the assets, including some limited customer information, were purchased by General Wireless, a subsidiary of RadioShack's largest shareholder, which intends to keep 1,750 of the stores open with the RadioShack name and operate its online business. General Wireless agreed not to sell the customer data it is buying to a third party, and to comply with RadioShack's previous privacy promises.

> RadioShack filed for bankruptcy in February, and the court could have allowed the sale of the data despite the promises that RadioShack had previously made to customers.

(a few paragraphs omitted for brevity)

Yeah, I pretty aggressively avoid giving companies any information, and if required, I now give fake information when possible.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/canadian-retailers-servers-sto...

> A security researcher has found customer and employee data belonging to one of Canada's biggest PC hardware retailers on servers put up for sale on Craigslist. The data, believed to go back as far as 15 years, belongs to NCIX, a PC retailer that filed for bankruptcy and closed shop in December 2017.

That bugged me at radio shack I would always tell them my name was Herman Munster 1313 mockingbird lane. This town this state 66666 Phone was *867-5309 I even used this name as my warranty id and received warrantee service using that name. Some of us had strange ideas where this lack of privacy was leading way back in the 90s. Back then I just didn't want any more junk mail or cold calling salesmen calling my house. Comparing then from the stuff that's going on now reminds me of that "Boiling the frog" analogy. I think the froggie should try to jump out while there is still time

Yeah, it definitely felt icky asking all the time.

That is to determine the effectiveness of junk mail.

I always replied with the store's own address and a 555-1212 number.

Apple used to ask for your address when you set up a new Mac, so I always replied with One Infinite Loop in Cupertino and Apple's phone number.

Etc.

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