Web Coupons Tell Stores More Than You Realize

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that a new breed of coupon, printed from the Internet or sent to mobile phones, look standard, but their bar codes can be loaded with a startling amount of data, including identification about the customer, Internet address, Facebook page information, and even the search terms the customer used to find the coupon in the first place. The coupons can, in some cases, be tracked not just to an anonymous shopper but to an identifiable person: a retailer could know that Amy Smith printed a 15-percent-off coupon after searching for appliance discounts at Ebates.com on Friday at 1:30 pm and redeemed it later that afternoon at the store. Using coupons also lets the retailers get around Google hurdles. Google allows its search advertisers to see reports on which keywords are working well as a whole but not on how each person is responding to each slogan. That alarms some privacy advocates. Companies can 'offer you, perhaps, less desirable products than they offer me, or offer you the same product as they offer me but at a higher price,' said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the United States Public Interest Research Group, which has asked the Federal Trade Commission for tighter rules on online advertising. 'There really have been no rules set up for this ecosystem.'"

Diff story?

[LostCluster]

What's the difference between this and the grocery store, drug store, or electronics store that wants you to carry a special card to identify yourself in order to get sale prices and discounts? Or the home stuff store that mails you a coupon postcard with your name and address printed on the coupon?

Re:Diff story?

[xeoron]

I would also include that the stores don't check the validity of the personal information anyone provides them or not upon filling out the form and handing out the card and by that point if they stores check them, then they don't seem to disable cards with obvious fake names and addresses.

No free lunch

[fermion]

While it is technically interesting that they can do this in coupons, and it is bad that consumers are too often not told what is being communicated, the reality is that this is not shocking at all. Like affinity cards, coupons on the internet are an exchange for information that can be monetized. Perhaps affinity are slightly more honest, but the concept is the same. The consumer chooses to buy at one location or one brand over another because they will receive a discount. Perhaps the discount make them feel special, or allows them to buy in a location or brand they could not normally afford. In many cases there an alternative that is a comparable price without the discount. The choice is made.

Making coupons more honest is not likely to reduce the flow of information. That requires convincing people that privacy is worth more than a bag of potato chips. One thing that Walmart did that was probably good is give people an realistic option to the overpriced brands they were brain washed in to buying during the 60's, 70's and 80's. Paying twice as much for laundry detergent, even when one could not afford it, was not sustainable. Sure, you got your stories on TV during the day, but was it worth it? Marketing is getting more direct because people still want brands, but they are not willing to pay for them.

Re:Diff story?

[_Sprocket_]

The subtle difference is that with a loyalty card, we both get (say) 20% a Widget. With this coupon system, you might get 20% but my coupon is only good for 15%.

Also, these coupons seem to be encoding a lot more interesting information in them. With a loyalty card, the store can tell that I bought the Widget. With the coupon, they can tell that I was searching for "personal hobby / interest" when stumbling on the coupon. I then printed the coupon and rushed to make the purchase within 1hr of finding the coupon.

Yeah - store cards suck. But they are much more limited in scope than these coupons. These things make store cards look like the days when folks just walked in off the street and paid for a widget in cash. People are unlikely to be aware of this or understand the implications of it. After all, coupons have traditionally been as anonymous as cash.

New? No.

[Bob9113]

new breed of coupon, printed from the Internet or sent to mobile phones, look standard, but their bar codes can be loaded with a startling amount of data, including identification about the customer, Internet address, Facebook page information, and even the search terms the customer used to find the coupon in the first place.

New? Really?

I just got out of advertising (hopefully for the last time) after a total of 6 of the past 11 years spent cutting tracking code.

The first time I wrote code to track brick and mortar coupons to the individual online origin was in 1999. Every online coupon you print has been doing this for many years. Every high tech advertising company in the business makes its pitch in part by having (or at least claiming to have) the most accurate and precise tracking. If you can think of a way that, theoretically, they might be tracking you; they almost certainly are. It is a massive portion of the value proposition behind advertising; learning which advertising works so you can maximize campaign efficiency. The companies that don't do this, and do it well, go out of business quickly.

The most surprising bit here is that the NY Times is just finding out. Perhaps they have their own in-house ad company? Or they don't run coupons online?

All that said, I'm happy to see this get some publicity. It stuns me how much people think they're not being watched on every single page they visit.

Re:Barcode Anonymizer

[Valen0]

This is a nice idea but it is too easy to circumvent. To circumvent this idea, you need to generate a globally unique identification number for each coupon. That globally unique number would reference an entry in the master customer database that would contain redemption status and the other biographical information that is being tracked. You do not need to have all the data on each coupon. All you need is a unique identifier (i.e. the globally unique number) to link the coupon with the other database data.

Re:Diff story?

[profplump]

With this coupon system, you might get 20% but my coupon is only good for 15%.

That's true of your loyalty-card system too, at least if and when they choose to do so. I'm not sure about grocery stores, but I know airlines and hotels and credit cards offer different perks to different customers in their rewards programs.

Frankly I'm not sure why anyone sees this as a problem. Maybe I'm just dense, but I'm not understanding the net benefit to society of having fixed prices vs. negotiated prices. For the largest purchases most consumers make -- a house and a car -- the price is almost always negotiated. What's special about shoes that requires we sell them at the same price to everyone? If it's so important to keep prices the same, shouldn't we be worried about prices that different among stores in the same city? In the same state?

Re:Diff story?

[thetoadwarrior]

Loyalty cards generally have terms and conditions with them explaining what you're getting into (or should) where as finding random coupons to print out on the net probably doesn't. Sure most no one reads the loyalty card's T&C but at least they're given the option.

Every consumer has to realize:

[Arancaytar]

No advertiser will give you stuff for free. Your discount is paid for with your personal data.

What is in fact despicable, though, is when you are not told exactly what this data is going to be. There is nothing wrong with selling your email address (hell, I'd sell my own by the bucket-load if I got something for them; I have good filtering anyway), but you deserve to know in advance what it is you are selling. It's your right as a seller.

Re:Diff story?

[Rasperin]

And you know what would happen? People would still by crap, they would get slapped on the wrist for a couple hundred thousand of dollars while being able to push there margin millions of dollars, and they would just find another way to do it or just keep going the same way.