Tom Brokaw "Big Data"

[Jaymees22]

Was listening to the radio on the way home from the dentist (ouch). Well anyway Tom Brokaw does a radio minute called "An, American Story" and todays subject was "Big Data". He discussed how all this data is gathered to determine our buying habits and how large stores are now tracking shoppers via the gps on their cell phones to see what they are buying. Then he says at the end of this, if they wondered what he was doing for so long in the ladies Thong Department. I thought only we know what Tom was doing, it's so hard to find a thong that fits.

I would give the link but it involves signing into i-heart radio as a member, but its easy to find if you want to listen.

[Kate Simmons]

Nothing surprises me these days.I wouldn't think it was a big deal if Tom did wear thongs. I did know about the GPS stuff though. We sacrifice privacy for convenience, so I failed to understand why everyone was upset with Snowden because the NSA tracks us as well but evidently they don't consider us a threat to the country. You'd be surprised how many people know about us.

[NV Susan]

Ah...we know about us....

[Gillian Gigs]

I read a similar internet story about how Target is doing just what you are talking about with the cell phones. Up here in Canada our largest drug store chain was bought out by a large grocery chain. Why you ask? The drug store chain has a reward point system in place, been there for a long time, to track your purchases, and the grocery chain wants the records to utilize the information to their benefit. Bots are basically doing the same thing on the internet, they monitor which web site you use and then use that information to put advertising onto you computer screen while you are on the net. Big brother is watching you...and he wants your business, at his store.

[Beverley Sims]

It is all about encouraging you to waste bandwidth and phone allowances.
Then you have to buy more for the frivolities.

[KaceyR]

Hmm. Never knew about the so called gps thing..
Especially as phone gps systems are so inaccurate..can't really keep a solid or accurate 50meter placement.
Many times, I played around with Shopkick app on my iPhone and no matter where I went to in my local store, it wouldn't even properly show I was in the store whatsoever...let alone figure out what specific department I was in.

Now...I'll get a bit techie here... I work for a certain retailers network handling (sounds similar to beers/KaceyMart )
The best way that I knew for department-sized localization (sans military-grade gps) is with the WI-FI network triangulation.
Potentially, if you have a newer coordinated wifi network with a good amount of access points, it's easy for such a system to triangulate on a specific person. Especially if signed into the network. Business environments also use this all the time to locate an abuser of the network, or with the right settings to locate other non-network sources of interference.

Now to my knowledge, we don't really do anything like this except for interference or problem issues.
In addition, not all stores have this newer wifi system to even be able to attempt a thing.
Most have 4-6 APs that are barely enough to run our own store data as is.

Wireless issues aside, what is the truly biggest thing with identifying people and shopping habits is the massive databasing of purchases based on literal checkouts and use of those shopping membership cards. E.g. CVS Extracare, Best Buy Rewards Zone, KaceyMarts shoopyourweigh rewards and so on and so forth. Some others I think link also at checkouts based on your general credit card info. Some isn't so bad (as it allows them to then print out coupons more relative to what _you_ like or use the most. (For a long time, while I never joined a membership till later, just using my credit card at Meijers caused coupons to print on stuff I might need down the line...so was certain it tracked based on cards).

Back in early 90's, shopper databases were used to track local trends, to adjust inventories,etc. at that time, WalMart was touting in the industry this big terabyte database (big for the times) of shopper info. KaceyMart (wasn't merged then) played a lot of follow-the-leader and started their own. Lots of full-blown mainframe systems, magnetic tape silos in the datacenter, the whole shebang. Of course, other retailers did the same, and eventually started tying this all up into mixing with these rewards card memberships. Nowadays, gone are most of the silos, and what's left are racks and racks of hard drive storage servers.
Don't even know.anymore what the size of this database entails, but it's huge.

Now... Some of the biggest things about this anymore is that this information is somewhat a bigger 'asset' for the companies to have and to exploit. Basically, this info it's now an item that can be sold to boost profits of the company. Many have speculated that with the rough profitability of "beers/KaceyMart" that the owner/CEO who is well known for taking over business and selling off its assets for the profit instead of rebuilding the company into a more desired retailer.. That he may turn this asset (the database) into a sell off. they may already have some access there for manufacturers to track stuff. I don't know. But it's certainly a big asset. Other side of course adds probable NSA tie-ins for tracking. Who knows.

So there's my insight into all of this.

On the one side, it doesn't bother me too much. Sure it's a big info thing... But at one point, if it allows retailers to provide pinpoint sales/discounts then I don't have too much trouble. If they were to use it in different ways (like saying we're not going to let you shop here anymore because of some certain buying habits) then I'd have an issue.

Now relevant to our activities.. Most of the time the coupons that printed from Meijers before I started CDing was just some shaving needs (20% off of Norelco shaver blades) and other oddities. Since the start of CDing, I've now had coupons for perfumes,makeup, and other things show up. (Even when I'm not buying fem stuff at times). And later I joined their Mperks thing... (Last week got some 10% off of beauty supplies... So saved a couple dollars).

From that viewpoint, I think an outsider might look at the trend and think "he's now got a girlfriend or is newly married now".

Little do they know the "girlfriend" is myself

[kimdl93]

I didn't know there was a thong department. I'm not terribly upset by big data. Amazon, googol and my credit card company already must have figured out that I'm transgendered by my shopping habits. Bu I'm grateful that when someone tried to use my credit card number in a Target 1400 miles away, the card company knew it wasn't me and voided the transaction.