I received a letter from Target that by default they’ll sell my information to unaffiliated third parties and I have to call or write a letter to opt-out. I’m sure I agreed to that at some point (and anyone signing up for a loyalty program that doesn’t cost anything should realize that’s what they are agreeing to, even if they are not explicitly told that), but perhaps they should be required to explicitly list the actual costs to the customer along side the benefits.
Last week I was picking up a prescription at CVS. In between confirming name and address and signing for payment or receipt of Rx they slipped a marketing agreement that I stupidly agreed to before realizing that it wasn’t an agreement related to the prescription purchase. So in someone’s compromised medical state (assuming), when you just want to get medicine to get back to normal they hide an agreement to sell information.
None of this improves my life. I just want to transact money for items and end the relationship until it happens again. I don’t need every advertiser knowing every one of or even habitual purchase I make.
If you work in ad-tech or are responsible for these front-end schemes to collect more information:
1: screw you
2: it’s super creepy and even if you’re not creepy, the stuff you’re working on and the people you are working for are
3: seriously, it’s really disgusting, immoral, and deceptive to find all manor of ways to trick people into agreeing to sell personal information that they assume (rightly) is private (even when done in public)
4: start leaking information on schemes, tricks, & loopholes so something can be done to destroy invasive ad tech