Is a supermarket discount coupon worth giving away your privacy? | Hacker News Reader

Is a supermarket discount coupon worth giving away your privacy?

latimes.com

39 pointslnguyen63 comments

This is incredibly wasteful. Back when I had a Kroger I would just play dumb and ask for the discount, even if I get a new card each time, because I refuse to carry their card. Not wanting to hold up their line, cashiers would either scan their own card or scan a new card and give it with a blank application, which I'd promptly trash. For those unfamiliar, they have laughably high prices on a lot of common items, unless you have your card which cuts the price in half.

The gas stations would ask you if you had a card, and if you said you didn't want one, they'd scan one and throw it away. I assume it's because some higher up demands x percent new signups...for what?

In the end they are just going to track me by my credit card, so what's the whole point of this song and dance?

I signed up for a kroger account online with a fake number and information. Instead of a phone number they just asked for an alternative id, which of course they highly suggested being a phone number. No problems so far.

(Slight pro tip, just enter in the stores phone number as an alt id - very good chance they'll have it registered)

But you're right, they're just going to track you some other way.

I also used 555-1212 etc but I used to shop at Harris Teeter and they flagged me. They knew who I was even when paying cash. I would get them to use the store card on occasion but they were strict and it was at manager discretion.

To sign up for their crappy card they copied your ID, something I’m not ok with.

My go to is to use the xxx-867-5309 from that 80's Jenny song. That works in most stores.

I usually do that one too. But I was in a Walgreens last week and tried it, and the cashier asked for my name after I entered it, gave me a disapproving look when I said it was my girlfriend "Jenny", and said it wasn't valid. I'd definitely successfully used it at that particular store before.

Tesco give you an effective 1% discount on some future purchases for using their clubcard at the checkout, that's provided you use the coupons they send you periodically before they expire. I prefer to do as little shopping as possible there and instead shop at the far cheaper German discounter Lidl down the road. They don't have any of that loyalty crap.

Do you have ALDI Nord or Aldi there?

Not the parent but yes, we have.

In Germany Lidl recently started an app that gives you discounts.

Netherlands too. Really disappointing.

It's a hugely privileged point of view to think that people could pass up multiple dollars of discounts to preserve the rather abstract notion of their privacy. That's why this shit needs to be regulated with the force of law and not make unreasonable expectations of consumers.

That's why I don't shop at Safeway. There's a huge increase in price unless you have a "Safeway club card".

Also, the lines are much shorter at Lucky's.

That may be the case, but it's also different in different places. I never lived in something which is called a food desert, and had always multiple choices to shop, even in walking distance. From that point of view these coupon- and bonus programs were always ridiculous to me.

Always paying cash. Not even per debit/credit card. Always ignoring any points which are valid for a limited amount of time for the equivalent of colored glass marbles.

Edit: And while paying cash, don't forget switching off your smartphone, or other gadgets which spam their unique identifiers into all sorts of nets. (Before entering the shop, or even the parking space outside) Or not carrying one to begin with. Sounds crazy? I don't care. It's very relaxing :-)

Or, maybe they just care a lot less about privacy than you do. I'm certainly not poor but I'd happily save a couple dollars per shopping trip in exchange for the supermarket having more details on my shopping habits, and the majority of people I know act similarly. Just because you feel very strongly about something, doesn't mean other people are wrong because they don't care so much about it. Is it so hard to imagine that some people might actually be happy to give up a bit of purchasing information in exchange for paying less for things?

It seems like the height of arrogance to demand that people not be allowed to do something without even asking them how they feel about doing it. Or maybe you don't need to ask them, because you know better than them?

Oh, no no. You see these people are happy to be exploited. It seems like the height of arrogance to demand that they cannot be exploited.

But I don't feel exploited, so nobody else can possibly be right? Surely, you don't need to ask that, since you know better already.

How is it "exploiting" to give personal info in exchange for saving money?

As long as what's going on is transparent -- which I think is something regulations are good for -- why is it exploitative? Are those rewards systems for filling out surveys also exploitative?

It's fair to say that tracking is not obviously disclaimed as part of the sign up process. The loyalty rewards are emphasized, often exclusively.

Right, which is why I said regulations would be helpful for that.

> As long as what's going on is transparent

I wouldn't consider "middle of some license agreement" to be transparent enough, and I'm sure most people aren't fully aware of what data is tracked and how it can be used.

Sure, so regulations that focus on transparency would be good. That's different from saying that trading privacy for discounts is inherently exploitative.

At the risk of Godwin'ing this thread: How is prostitution exploitative?

You give out very personal "services" in exchange for the money you desperately need. It is perfectly transparent that you are being exploited, but it is not like you have a choice.

If you think that is ridiculous hyperbole: Do you think any poor American actually has the luxury to say "No, I am happy to pay more for food."? I don't understand why you think that filling out surveys is even remotely related to covering basic needs, but if you think it is you must be very privileged.

Comparing grocery store discounts to prostitution is silly.

By your reasoning, basically any kind of offer for almost anything can be construed as exploitative, because your working assumption is that a certain class of people is incapable of saying no to any kind of money or discount.

Even if this is true, that's an underlying problem with the system, not with any one actor.

Well yes, that is why there are laws for minimum wage and slumlords.

This is an /r/selfawarewolves moment. Maybe prostitution isn't exploitative and in our rush to protect people we are imprisoning them.

It's also likely naive to think that data will only be in the hands of the supermarket. Who do they share it with? There is no transparency for where your data ends up. What if you are okay with sharing the data with the supermarket, but not dissapprove of them selling it to a data broker. We need more fine grained control than just disallow everything, or allow everything with no restricions.

We should have a National Do-not-track Registry, just like we have a Do-not-call Registry [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Do_Not_Call_Registry

And it would be ignored just as much.

Why would you make such a long post if you ignore OP's entire premise?

Is it wrong for somebody to value privacy and is it moral to let the ability to act upon that be decided by if you have enough money to survive?

logicchains is saying regardless of the answer, customers should be able to decide for themselves instead of centrally enforcing ethics and morality. I don't think that's "ignoring the premise" as much as pointing out a flaw in the premise... Namely that an appropriate solution is presumed.

> I'd happily save a couple dollars per shopping trip in exchange for the supermarket having more details on my shopping habits

You’re thinking about this all wrong. The “discount” is the actual real price; the price on the shelf is the punishment price for people who stubbornly refuse to give up their privacy.

See it as the price of privacy (priced in).

> You’re thinking about this all wrong. The “discount” is the actual real price; the price on the shelf is the punishment price for people who stubbornly refuse to give up their privacy.

It's all a negotiation. Try not to take it so personal.

Do you really think people know what they are giving up when they sign up for one of those? Are the stores being up front about what they are doing with your data? Of course not. It's buried in pages of TOS. When you're rushed at the register with a line behind you and you want to get the price that you saw when you picked up your items you're going to sign up as fast as you can. You don't have time to understand what you just got suckered into.

I just don't shop at stores that do that. I'd gladly pay an extra few dollars once and know to avoid a store than spend time filling out a form.

In my area, I have three close options (within 2 miles), all of which have cards, but only one requires the card to get discounts. The other two offer discounts once you rack up enough points (every X points save $Y dollars) and allow you to "attach" discounts through their online portal to your card, which are separate from the discounts in their mailers and on the shelves. I alternate cards periodically (credit card rotating bonus categories, putting spend on rarely used cards to prevent them from being closed, etc), and I alternate stores, so I doubt they're able to track me well at all.

Other than that, I shop at Costco, which obviously records all of my purchases. I buy mostly staples, so my data is probably not as interesting as someone who spends more (my spending barely makes "Executive" worth it).

Why is this opinion so underrepresented on hn? I'd like to see more discussions about this rather than just insults and name-calling. While I care about my privacy, this is just a feeling. I have no good answer when people ask me: "What is the worst thing that can happen if I give away that data?"

Just respond "SkyNet". :)

Every dystopia starts with strict, individual tracking and erosion of individual rights in the name of "security" or "convenience". It doesn't mean we're headed there intentionally, but as they say, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

So my answer is, "I don't know, and I don't really want to find out".

This is not height of ignorance, this is the basis of much good policy: understanding that most people in most cases will not be able to fully evaluate the benefits & tradeoffs.

Say you buy the same food every week and get a discount code. Awesome!

Say you buy the same food every week (sweets, chips and other healthy food) then turn diabetic and change your diet The company, aware that you used to buy those products tries in every way possible to push you again to buy them (vouchers, targeted in-store advertisements, ...). Still good? I guess you have a choice but they certainly increase the temptation they would risk your health. Research shows its not that says - and mentally draining - to resist. But of course you're not aware of this effect as you simply skim through your voucher booklet.

Picture the same but with alcohol/an alcoholic.

Picture the same but they don't just use this but their own data firm resells this data to all other supermarkets in the area and now each shop bombards you with junk food/alcohol/... ads when you're trying hard to stay clean.

Say you are a young woman and start buying wet wipes, creams, baby products. The company concludes that you are pregnant. They pass this info (not the actual sales but the data they derived - which you are not in control of!) on to a data firm in semi-anonymised format. The data firm de-anonymises you (after all that's their the expertise), combined this with your credit score and public records information and sells it on. For example a prospective employer does a 'due diligence' check and finds info that you are pregnant. They conclude that you are likely to go on maternity leave soon and decide not to hire you. It doesn't even matter whether the original purchased were for you, the processing and re-processing of data has just cost you a job.

Or shopping data reveals that you regularly but adult diapers and a data firm concluded you are incontinent. This shoes on an employer's background checks and you lose out.

Shopping data reveals you support children. A potential landlord refuses your request for apartment info because they don't want noise.

You are renovating your parents' apartment. Shopping data reveals you bought a lot of glycerin in the past year and the FBI gets interested...

And none of these even touch on data from pharmaceutical products (would you have gotten your current job if your employer had known you regularly take antidepressants?).

These might be more or less stretched scenarios, but there are a billion of these. And some either are or will probably in the future become true.

My point is: you have no idea how the data you produce is used, reused, interpreted, reinterpreted, sold, resold, etc. You don't actually know what the 20c saved on wet wipes has on your life in the near or far future.

That's why policy needs to intervene and put a stop to the massive data collection and processing going on today. It's not going to increase prices - on the contrary, if this is not anymore an angle companies will put their prices back down to regular levels and don't need to artificially inflate them in order to give loyalty program members a 'discount'.

When you sell your privacy you hurt all of us, and regulation is the tool for collective action problems. If you sell data to Walmart that lets them build a psychological profile of a shopper from their purchase history, they can use that to psychologically profile me.

> to preserve the rather abstract notion of their privacy.

Not to mention that unless you're paying in gold coins, your credit/debit processor will sell all your payment flow, anyways.

The rich and privileged never stops trying to take freedom away from the ignorant poor.

If they can afford to give you a discount coupon, then the 'discount' is already built into the product. Non-compliant customers pay more as a result.

Yes. Even if they don't use your data (incredibly unlikely), they win just by scamming privacy conscious, or even apathetic, people into paying more.

Perhaps, but at least in my area, I can just choose to shop somewhere that doesn't require a club card to get discounts.

Most places have a club card where you get points to redeem in the form of cash back after some amount of spend, but the minimum redemption is so high that you'd have to make them your main store to get enough to redeem, so I doubt most people with a card actually redeem the points. Advertised prices don't need a card, except at 1-2 places (e.g. a rebranded Kroger store in my area). I just avoid places that require a card to get advertised prices, and my life is simpler (no recitation of my phone number, just a "no thanks").

However, everywhere asks for my phone number, so I can't help but feel like people are being coerced into tracking. I think we need to remind friends and whatnot that giving your phone number out quite often doesn't save you money, and just remember a short list of places where it does. For those places, I give my parents' number (they can have the fuel points or whatever), which makes the data fairly useless.

All these loyalty programs aren't there to give you a discount, they exist to fine the customers who don't participate.

Giving them false information maybe an option.. or even "unintentional" misspellings, off-by-one phone numbers, disposable email addresses and vacant lots.

IANAL: Btw, has anyone asked a lawyer if this is a crime in any state or country?

You know? Whith all the ranting here about the pros and cons, maybe you should read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_tag#History

Edit: From my point of view the gathering of data is unnecessary. The shopped items are scanned by their barcodes at the cashiers point. This is enough to plan for restocking, in real time, with datamining considering time, location, events, holidays, whatnot. Everything else is superfluous, and just a lie. That simple.

I nearly exclusively order online and have it delivered, which seems to be much more commonplace in the UK than in North America, I've noticed.

It saves me too much time and money, frankly, even though I'm otherwise quite privacy-conscious. (I won't scan my 'myWaitrose' card in-store when asked if I have one, for example, since it's 100% about tracking and gives me no benefit if I'm not claiming a free coffee/newspaper.)

Besides, it would be hypocritical of me to shop on Amazon so much and then object to supermarket websites.

The sad thing is they all are doing it and don't even need you to use any of their "discount cards" or whatever, they can just do credit card correlation with third parties and achieve all the same results without you ever agreeing to it. I compromised and got a card but never signed anything or registered it, so I still get discounts but I can't, for example, enter my phone number (I have to have the card for scanning on me). They are correlating the data anyway so I might as well save a buck or two.

Albertsons did away with their card for that reason but they also accept Apple Pay, so I believe I’m in the clear. TJs too.

Contrary to the way it was marketed Apple Pay only randomises the credit card number when you add the card the first time. After that it’s the same card number being used for every transaction and traceable.

Source?

There was a thread a while ago... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14491409

Essentially make a few Apple Pay purchases and look at the card number on the receipt. It's always the same.

There's always the time honored tradition of giving a fake phone number.

Giant even has a "Forgot my card" option on the self checkout that just gives you the discount without entering anything.

Another option is to periodically swap your card with a random person on the subway.

Depends. I got $360 in free groceries last year at one place so I think that was a fair trade.

At the other store in town I got about $150.

Better pay than I get for my privacy on the web.

Hypothetical example: and what happens when your insurance company buys this data 10 years down the line, sees that you've buying an awful lot of sugary soda very closely in line with people at risk of diabetes, and decides to increase your monthly premium?

This is my favourite example of a consequence of loss of privacy. I've found it to be incredibly efficient at convincing even non-tech people (like my family) to be privacy-aware.

Then we as a society should decide if pricing people differently based on this kind of data should be legal (in my opinion it shouldn't for social insurance). But the probability that you indeed have a risk for diabetes is higher than if you'd only have bought broccoli.

http://archive.md/w1p71

Just use a burner email and fake or burner phone number for your supermarket rewards account.

Are they forbidden to or is it technical not possible to track by credit card?

Yes? Between this and my Amex Blue 6% cashback it's pretty good.

Also, why on Earth would HN ask for my location https://imgur.com/a/RMOXa1d

That makes less sense.

Are you sure there's no extension injecting JS or something into the page?

I'm pretty sure this should never happen - you should probably reach out to hn@ycombinator.com about this

It's Chrome on Android, which doesn't do extensions, right? And I don't think Sonic is putting JS on the page. I wonder if it's a race that occurs when you just navigate past a page that _does_ ask. On the Pixel 3a there are noticeable pauses when browsing. Could be something like that.

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