Supermarket Chain To Share Data With HMO’s
February 25, 2003
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Posted by Aubrey Turner
I can’t verify this yet, as it is an advance blurb for a planned “investigative report” on a Phoenix TV station (ABC Channel 15, KNX-TV). Here’s the meat of the story:
Curt Avallone, Vice President for Marketing and New Technology at Ahold-owned Stop & Shop (the largest grocery chain on the east coast), admits that Stop & Shop has developed software to analyze the eating habits of individual shoppers, converting their shopper card records into detailed nutritional and dietary profiles.
Apparently, it was quite expensive to develop the software, so to recoup expenses the company plans to share the data with several HMO’s, Avallone reveals.
Why doesn’t this surprise me? It was only a matter of time (if true, that is).
See the “MORE” section for the full email alert.
Update:(2/26/2003) This morning I got an email that the news report did not include the statements from Avallone. So the above is definitely unconfirmed.
PHOENIX ANTI-CARD BOMBSHELL AIRS TONIGHT:
LANDS AHOLD DEEPER IN HOT WATER
The ABC affiliate in Phoenix will air explosive footage tonight of a
major Ahold supermarket executive admitting to planned abuses of his
store’s shopper card database. (Details on news program below.)
Curt Avallone, Vice President for Marketing and New Technology at
Ahold-owned Stop & Shop (the largest grocery chain on the east coast),
admits that Stop & Shop has developed software to analyze the eating
habits of individual shoppers, converting their shopper card records
into detailed nutritional and dietary profiles.
Apparently, it was quite expensive to develop the software, so to recoup
expenses the company plans to share the data with several HMO’s,
Avallone reveals.
CASPIAN has been warning shoppers for years of this very development.
Curt Avallone is the same man who recently boasted of Stop & Shop’s
plans to utilize “tracking technology in store ceilings [that] could
pinpoint a customer’s whereabouts and. . .cross-reference special offers
with personal data.” [1]
In addition, the Stop & Shop chain recently intoduced RFID-based
“Speedpass” payment technology into three of its Boston-area stores —
the only supermarket chain in the nation to do so. Shoppers can now
“wave” their Speedpass “wands” to pay for their groceries instandly
through an automatic credit card charge or checking account deduction.
Since the Speedpass is linked with the store’s data collection card
program, those who participate have their purchases automatically
recorded in Stop & Shop’s database. [2][3]
Stop & Shop has fared quite poorly in CASPIAN pricing surveys in the
past. Perhaps all the money the chain has invested in misguided tracking
and surveillance technologies explains why their prices are consistently
higher than their competitors. That and a little problem with corporate
ethics… (see next story)
Sources:
[1] http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,3959,43528,00.asp
[2] http://www.speedpass.com/news/article.jsp?id=55
[3] http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030212/120397_1.html
=========================================================================
ABC NEWS PROGRAM DETAILS – WATCH TONIGHT!
If you are in the Phoenix area, you can watch the story tonight at 10:00
PM on ABC Channel 15 (KNX-TV). The segment will include footage of last
week’s protest against Safeway stores in Phoenix, along with interviews
with CASPIAN founder Katherine Albrecht and CASPIAN volunteer Alan
Stang.
If you are not in the Phoenix area, you can view the segment in
streaming video once it is made available at KNXV-TV’s website at:
The Investigators: “Card Tricks”
http://www.abc15.com/
=========================================================================
AHOLD: THE NEXT “ENRON”
Who is controlling the data collected on Stop & Shop customers? Not the
sort of people you would want to trust with intimate details on your
family’s eating habits, apparently.
Royal Ahold, the Dutch-based multinational supermarket corporation that
owns Stop & Shop, Giant, Bi-Lo, and Tops Markets, stunned Wall Street
yesterday with revelations that it has engaged in accounting fraud
rivalling that of (former) energy giant Enron.
Ahold’s stock went into freefall over the disclosure of massive
accounting fraud, losing over 60% of its value and being downgraded to
“junk status” in a single day. Ahold stock is currently trading below
$3.50 a share, down from a high last year of over $26.00.
Ahold’s board of directors has fired the company’s CEO and chief
financial officer, and faces massive class action lawsuits filed by at
least two law firm stemming from its fraudulent practices.
This is a company that clearly can’t be trusted to tell the truth to its
shareholders – can we trust it to tell the truth to its customers?
=========================================================================
Withdraw your support of ethically challenged grocery corporations
BOYCOTT AHOLD-OWNED STOP & SHOP, GIANT, BI-LO, AND TOPS CHAINS!
=========================================================================
CASPIAN – Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering
A national consumer organization opposing supermarket “loyalty” cards
and other retail surveillance schemes since 1999
http://www.nocards.org
We encourage you to duplicate and distribute this message to others.
==========================================================
To subscribe or unsubscribe to the CASPIAN mailing list, click the
following link or cut and paste it into your browser:
http://www.nocards.org/cgi/mojo/mojo.cgi
Categories: Privacy
There are countermeasures.
It costs nothing to get the first shopping card. It costs nothing to get the second, and the third, and so forth, much like web-based email addresses. The identities recorded for them are probably not verified, even if you use your bankcard or credit card for the purchase.
So: Put all of your bulghur, Preparation H and canteloupe purchases on this one, Marlboros, Bud and Metamucil on that one, and so forth. Give each card a personality, a life history even, and shuffle them righteously before getting in the checkout line.
You can probably get a new card every month, right at the checkout, entering bogus information. Even if you go there often enough to recognize the cashier, you probably don’t go often enough for him or her to recognize you, so you can get away with it.
I have had my purchases racked up on a “dummy” shopper card that the cashier has tucked away—-
“Do you have your Soopercard?”
“Uhh [patting my own pockets] guess I forgot it.”
My regular store tells me they are converting to a system based on telephone numbers to aid shoppers who forget their cards. This system remains “optional.”
And in the end, if you tire of collecting them, merely trade them with likeminded neighbors.
I’ve just taken the approach that I won’t do business with a store that requires a card. I originally considered the idea of monkey-wrenching their system, but it wasn’t worth it. Wal-Mart beats the prices in these card stores, even with the discount you get for using the card. I’m not terribly fond of Wal-Mart, but the price is right.
One thing to be careful of is that some stores actually require you to show them your driver’s license so that they are assured of getting your correct data. If you’re not willing to give them that info, you don’t get a card there.