I'm both horrified and intrigued with the new plans for Microsoft's grocery cart advertising.On one hand, I like the idea that I could upload a shopping list from home, scan a card at the store, have the list appear, and have things checked off as I put thing into the cart. It'd be easier than balancing the pen and paper while chucking paper towel rolls into the cart from thirty feet away (because that's how I keep my Pro-Bowl caliber arm in shape, doncha know).
I'm even kinda down with the store having a better idea of their customers' shopping patterns so they can (in theory) make things more efficient.
By the same token, I sure as heck don't need more advertising in my life, and I don't want them knowing more about my shopping patterns. Feel free to learn about me as part of a group, but not about me individually. That's just creepy.
5 comments:
i struggle with that BIG time myself
amazon tracking what books I search...not good with that even if it means better recs...
not good
Hey come on... It's Microsoft. The thing would probably crash so many times no one would use it.
"Get Bill Gates in here..."
i hope you dont ever sneak a pack of cigs here and there. one of these times the cart is going to remind you that you that you havent bought some marlboro reds in a while, to wifey's surprise
Amazon thinks I'm gay and now Krogers will too!
Not really but I tell that story because I always buy my Dad Seinfeld dvds as presents so of course I get a notice about every Seinfeld news story.
Anyways, I'm torn about all this because if I am going to get ads, I guess they might as well be stuff I'm interested in. And, if the cart is keeping track of everything I put in it, I like the idea of no checkout lines, just push it straight out to my car and it debits my card on the way out.
We walk a fine line trying to make our lives easier but still stay somehow private. It's an all but impossible dance...
Achilles3...I remember asking the librarians at PLCH one time if they could give me a list of the things I'd checked out over the past couple of years so I could look back and check out what I'd looked at/listened to...they said they keep no records whatsoever so that no governmental agency can ever track their patrons even if a warrant was presented...Amazon (and lots of other corporations), on the other hand, have no such moral compunctions (sp?)...
joey...hadn't thought of that...the shame of shopping as a couple after lots of solo shopping could be an all new sensation...
5chw4r7z...good to have ya around these here parts...I dig your blog and stumbled across it a week or so ago...I hate that Amazon uses gifts that I pick up for The Mother-in-Law to suggest purchases...yeah, I can choose to not use them, but shouldn't it recognize that those discs don't match my tastes in the least?...
and I think we're still a ways off from just rolling the cart out and having things automatically debits...sadly far away...
wv: ehbug
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