Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!emory!dixie.com!jgd
From: jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Lifestyle Information ( was Re: Safeway Stores to Accept Charge Cards)
Message-ID: <9418@rsiatl.Dixie.Com>
Date: 9 Apr 91 16:15:24 GMT
References: <11216@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: Dixie Communications Services
Lines: 54

randolph@cognito.Eng.Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz) writes:

>Folks, can any of you tell me just what all this lifestyle information
>is used for currently?  *Not* potentially.  What's being done with it
>now?  

The publicly stated use of this information is to be better able to 
target you with direct mail and phone solicitations.  In the 
classic double-speak of marketing, the offer it as a benefit to you
the shopper.  In reality, what they are trying to do is to improve the
average 1% return rate on direct marketing.  They don't want to 
bother the other 99% who don't respond.

Now you might think that this is peachy-cool since you don't respond
to junk mail anyway.  Not true.  The lifestyle profiles are based on
what you actually buy and where you go.  The model assumes that if you
buy X from Y store, that you'd be amenable to buying the same X 
through alternative channels.  Or in the case of the grocery stores,
they want to only shelf what the bulk of the customers are buying.
What this means is that if you're not white, median aged, with 2.1
kids, live in 1500 sq ft of space and watch 4.6 hours of TV, you 
might not like the selection.  As someone else noted, diversity is what
makes the shopping experience satisfying and this kind of stuff is
the antithesis of selection.


>And, equally serious question -- is the information you get any more
>detailed or valuable than could be gotten by scanning the telephone
>book and walking through your neighborhood?  I'm beginning to get the
>strong impression that vast amounts of effort are being spent to
>gather information that -- for the most part -- just isn't that useful
>and is pretty easily available anyhow.

Yes, much more valuable.  First off, walking a neighborhood will 
provide some basic demographics but even those are not reliable.  
For example, you could be living on the edge of bankrupcy in a $200,000
neighborhood and not have any disposable income at all.  Secondly,
it is well known that people often times say just the opposite of what
they do.  Lifestyle information is brutally accurate in documenting
certain habits.  The conclusions drawn are often incorrect but the
facts are not.  If your register tape shows you bought 30 lbs of beef last 
month, you actually bought at least that much.

If that were as far as it went, I might not have a big problem.  But as
we've seen SSNs and credit databases abused, so will this information be
abused.  To paraphrase, it exists, ergo, it will be abused.

John

-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC        | "Purveyors of speed to the Trade"  (tm)
Rapid Deployment System, Inc. |  Home of the Nidgets (tm)
Marietta, Ga                  | 
jgd@dixie.com                 |"Politically InCorrect.. And damn proud of it