Is Personalization Worth It?

This week, The Markup highlights another story in the data broker world. This one is related to the food we eat even though it has nothing to do with actual food. Most of us shop at a Kroger brand store, so this impacts most of us. Yet, we have no idea this massive data collection, sharing, and selling is happening. Even those of us that understand the data broker ecosystem, may not know the extent of data transactions that are happening. They don’t want us to know about it. We are meant to be kept in the dark. It should be shocking that Kroger hopes to make over $1B selling our personal data.

This goes back to the loyalty card programs which started collecting information on our shopping habits. They learned that they were able to leverage customer data which turns into bigger profits at the cash register for them. The difference is that now we are not benefitting by the use of our data with discounts - they are just outright selling it. Read all about it here.

“Jon found that Kroger loyalty programs, including those for other brands the company owns, like Ralphs and Food 4 Less, help collect information that goes well beyond the list of items in your shopping cart. The company “enriches” information it has on what you buy and who you are with additional data. Some of this data is acquired from brokers, some comes from Kroger apps, some of it comes from Bluetooth beacons and facial recognition systems in stores. Some is even systematically inferred from all the other data. “