How is Facebook "Like" your Grocery Store
Christopher Carter
Ever wonder about those coupons that come shooting out of the machine at the checkout counter of your local grocery store? Every time I complete my order the machine issues coupons as if I hit the lottery. As I thought through this process I started to realize all of the personal information I give my grocery store each time I hand over my "savings" card and my credit card to make the payment. The former tells the store exactly who I am so it can connect my purchases with me, the purchaser. The latter gives Visa the same info, but that's for another post.
When I am on Facebook I indicate the things I "Like". Most users freely give Facebook a profile of themselves by posting who they are, what schools they attended, where they work, their age, what music, books and TV shows they like, who our friends are, etc. This creates a very powerful profile that any advertiser would love to have. One has the ability to limit how this personal information is used but the data is right there, thanks to me freely offering to put my life online.
Is the same so at the grocery store? Does anyone realize how much the purchases they make at the grocery store provide a detailed profile of who I am, perhaps more than the deliberate choices I make, and the information I post about my life, on Facebook? And think about the use of one's Visa, Mastercard, or American Express Card. They collect data on your spending habits across multiple venues, and even issue a report to you at year end recapping your expenditures.
I inadvertantly, but freely, tell my grocery store I like Coca Cola over Pepsi, Skippy over Jiff, wheat bread over white, Tropicana over Florida's Natural, Sam Adams over Budweiser. In doing so I am telling them what I "Like" without clicking a button. Yet have I told them how they can use this identifiable personal information to target advertising to me? Isn't the coupon racing out of the machine a form of advertising that is targeted to me based on the decisions I make in the grocery store? Where can I go in the grocery store to make changes to my privacy selections that determine how this information is used and ultimately what ads are presented to me? I'm sure their is a way, but it is not as obvious to me as what I can do on Facebook. I go to my privacy settings, I check or uncheck the boxes. Done.
We give up so much personally identifiable information in the grocery store that is used to target advertising to us. Yet people are up in arms every time Facebook changes their privacy policy so they can offer us targeted ads that correspond to our "Likes". Same with Google and Google+.
And more technologies are being developed to capture our "Likes" in the closed environments in which we go about our daily lives. Have you read about all of the investments being made in computerized systems for the car, some of which capture usage data for car rental or insurance companies, and many of which you won't be told are present? Will these systems include functionality for me to select to whom my driving habits or my personal entertainment selections can be reported? Intel has set aside $100M to invest in this industry. I tell people my new Explorer is a computer in an SUV chassis. If only the MyFord Touch software functioned as well as the software on my iPhone.
Yet I digress.
I am not saying people shouldn't care about how this information is collected and gathered. My point is simply in our everyday lives we offer so much information based on where we drive, where we shop, how we use our smartphones, the channels we click on the TV, everything. Yet we do it naturally in our daily routines without thinking about who is gathering the information and using data mining software to figure out who we are and how to reach us to make money from advertisers. Should we be as concerned about this as we are when Facebook changes its privacy policy or its methods to advertise to us?
If you read this I bet you will think twice the next time you are selecting Skippy or Jif.