BudNet Tracks Your Suds 712
An anonymous reader writes "CNN is carrying a story about Budweiser's national internal sales tracking network called BudNET. It allows Anheuser-Busch to instantly track sales across the country, and 'If Anheuser-Busch loses shelf space in a store in Clarksville, Tennessee, they know it right away.' It brings up some interesting privacy issues, because according to the article 'The last time you bought a six-pack of Bud Light at the Piggly Wiggly, Anheuser servers most likely recorded what you paid, when that beer was brewed, whether you purchased it warm or chilled, and whether you could have gotten a better deal down the street.' Frankly, I don't want Budweiser knowing when I choose to buy their beer versus another brands."
Quite frankly... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Quite frankly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Quite frankly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't want 'em to know who you are? Pay in cash.
Re:Quite frankly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you have grocer savings cards, I do hear a bit of complaining about those, but nothing near say RFID. Those are personally identifiable as far as I can tell.
Re:Quite frankly... (Score:5, Insightful)
My question is simply why don't you hear complaining about the data banks have access to, yet you hear complaints about something like RFID, which is unlikely to ever be used outside of supply chain and inventory management functions (I'd guess it'll be part of the disposable packaging rather than integrated into the product, or maybe even removable at checkout for reuse). For all the bitching you'd think they were proposing GPS beacons being physically attached to every product.
Re:Quite frankly... (Score:4, Funny)
A public DARE!! (Score:5, Funny)
I paid approximatly $7.50.
My intent in purchasing the beer was, in addition to enjoying its smooth robust flavor, performing a demonstration to amazed friends on how to remove the magic "rocket widget" from an empty Guinness bottle (without breaking the bottle of course).
There, I said it. Now the entire world knows what beer I purchased, when, where, and why.
What is the WORST thing that can possibly happen to me by making this public?
Re:A public DARE!! (Score:4, Funny)
"This is your boss. According to your timesheet, you reported that you worked all day and night on Saturday. Yet here I find out that you were drinking on the job. Those rocket widgets track when you finish drinking the bottles too, you know, so don't try to say you drank them on Sunday; they also provide a saliva analysis indicating who drank them. You know we have a strict policy on being sober on the job. Don't bother to come in tommorrow, we will ship your personal items to you. Good luck finding another job, you fucking drunk!"
Re:A public DARE!! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Quite frankly... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Quite frankly.. - Why so Paranoid?? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't hide!
Re:Quite frankly.. - Why so Paranoid?? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not Safe at Wal*Mart (Score:4, Informative)
Also, the wheel would be a bad place to put a RFID transmitter. The movement and vibration around there, as well as the fact that transmission distance would be limited by being near the ground, mean that there would be better places for it.
Re:Quite frankly... (Score:4, Informative)
I can understand their interest in better tracking of inventory, but it done be amazing the lengths they go for profit other than to improve their brands. I'm sure they, like Miller and others, picked up a few microbreweries during the boom in the 90's, but if they watered them down like their own flagship brand then it's a self-defeating measure. (Budweiser shorts on expensive malted barley, using 40% rice)
I've known enough people who work in stores (or have worked for distributors) and the pressure for sales space (particularly at the expense of competitors) usually is waged with inducements, like clocks, TV's, trips to the Super Bowl, etc.
After all the advertising, all the tactics, all the analysis, it's still like Eric Idle said. It's worth pointing out to Bud fans, who stand by their 'beer' like it's Mom, Apple Pie and the Flag, that this company didn't become hugely profitable by following the Reinheitsgebot.
Wow you're right! (Score:5, Funny)
Why just the other day my chauffer took a wrong turn off of the freeway and pulled me past this run down little liquor store where this shabby looking man (who by the way was driving a Pontiac! A PONTIAC!!!) who hadn't shaved for a couple of days was walking out with a bottle of Johnny Walker Red. RED LABEL?! I exclaimed, exhaling a puff of cigar smoke and tipping my top hat back in a bemused manner. WHO ARE THESE CRETINS? I practically had my driver phone the police right then and there.
Re:Wow you're right! (Score:4, Insightful)
Thats not snotty IMO, Bud is just crappy "beer". I suppose its a cheap alcohol delivery mechanism, but beer its not.
Re:Wow you're right! (Score:5, Interesting)
I do think it's snotty to crap on them because they're big and commercial, and I think you're all a bunch of god damn yuppies and beer snobs. No offense.
Re:Wow you're right! (Score:5, Insightful)
Whew, that was close. (Score:5, Funny)
Amen. But try telling that to the people who get pissed off when I wear my "NASCAR is stupid" T-shirt. After a couple of minutes of staring at it they figure out what it says, spit tobaccey on me, and tell their sister/wife to go git their shotgun out of the camper. Then they say "You think yur bettern me, just cause you have a shirt on." I try to explain that I just don't like NASCAR (when they tilt their head like a dog, I rephrase it as NAASCOR and it registers) and it doesn't reflect in any way on how I feel about him personally. Then they think I am some kind of faggot for having personal feelings towards him, and I have to quickly leave in my "furrin" car before the little lady gets back with the shotgun.
Re:Wow you're right! (Score:5, Funny)
This was a contest in my college bar. It was thought up by the bartenders to get rid of the 2 year old Pacific they had in their fridge. It was so crappy that they only bought two cases of it, and they still had about 40 by the time this started. Basically, we'd play pool, and the loser had to chug a bottle of this crap. I myself drank about a dozen of those things. I swear, it was like giving Old Jenny Rottencrotch a full tongue bath. They gave away the beer for free, since they'd make it back in the shots of SoCo I'd buy to get rid of the taste. The only upside was that my pool game improved dramatically...
Re:Wow you're right! (Score:4, Interesting)
Microbrewing has brought about an American beer renaissance in which other styles of beer are being made again and sold at tolerably reasonable prices, though it still costs three or four times as much to drink good beer as crappy beer.
You haven't hung out with Marines (Score:5, Informative)
So, typically, you get a case or two of the stuff you like to drink, and a case or two of something cheap. [exact numbers vary by the number of people involved, their prefered drinking habits, and at what point in the night they become incoherent]
As people get more loaded, you give 'em the crappy stuff. They don't really care. This enables you to get some good stuff, and some crap, rather than settling on the mediocre middle ground for everything.
Re:Wow you're right! (Score:4, Funny)
I drink beer and used to work at a beverage distributor and one of the jokes at the place was the "bud-fart" effect, so your analogy of it being crappy beer is more literal than you may realize.
Re:Wow you're right! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow you're right! (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess it is being a little arrogant, if people really like bud than so be it. I do know people who think "good beer" is disgusting. I usually generalize the meaning of "good" to be quality ingredients and a decent brewing process. Whether or not the recipe is to your liking, at least it was made properly. Bud is factory spewed and made with crappy grain (rice waste products are included to steady the process and make it cheaper.)
Oh well
it's crappy by european standards, sure (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not personally a fan of Bud, but I think most of the people crapping on it in this thread are doing so out of simple elitism. Most likely prefer beers that have been marketed to them as "sophisticated" like the hopped-to-hell-and-back Heineken, or, god forbid, Amstel, which seems to trade entirely on a fake European heritage to excuse the fact that it tastes like licking a skunk.
Re:Quite frankly... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd be more concerned . . . (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I'd be more concerned . . . (Score:5, Funny)
"pLac e $500 IN A BrO W n PapEr b A g AnD l eAV e IT i t BeHinD tHE du mPsTe r O R w E tEl L yOur f r IeN D s y O U DRiNK bUD"
Easy solution! (Score:3, Insightful)
Drink a good locally produced microbrew instead.
Re:Easy solution! (Score:3, Funny)
But shop at Amazon online.
Re:Easy solution! (Score:4, Insightful)
Piggly-Wiggly? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Piggly-Wiggly? (Score:5, Interesting)
Piggly-Wiggly's success led to a number of copycat chains, quite a few of which decided to also copy the astoundingly dumb naming convention in addition to the whole self-serve thing.
Re:Piggly-Wiggly? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just pay with cash (Score:5, Insightful)
Just pay with cash and they'll never know it was you!
Re:Just pay with cash (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, at a growing number of stores, including every single grocery store in my area, thay want you to carry and use a card that identifies you to the system even if you do pay cash. Of course, you can not cary a card, but then you don't get any of the sale prices, and more and more items seem to be "on sale". Of course, the sale prices are still higher than the items were before the cards, and higher than the items are in areas where they don't have the cards. So yes, you can pay cash, but be prepaired to pay a few bucks extra if you want to retain your privacy.
Re:Just pay with cash (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Use somebody else's card. When you get one of those cards, they give you a couple copies. Friends will often just give them to you.
2. Get one online. Seriously. I don't have the time to find a link, but there was that guy campaigning to make himself the #1 consumer of some grocery chain by giving away stickers with his barcode on them.
Personally, I hate the things too (it's just such an obvious excuse to raise prices and track purchases), but don't have too mu
Re:Just pay with cash (Score:3, Informative)
That's the guy you were probalby talking about. "Together we might amass a profile of the single greatest shopper in the history of mankind."
Re:Just pay with cash (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Just pay with cash (Score:3, Insightful)
"If you are going to profit of my information at least share some of the fruits with me"
Re:Just pay with cash (Score:5, Informative)
Or just download, print and apply the the Ultimate Shopper's [cockeyed.com] number and get your sale prices whilst still donning your tin foil apparel.
How about sharing this data with us? (Score:5, Informative)
This is more-or-less what has happened. If you use a card (the cashier scans the barcode on the plastic card) then you get the sale items at about 20% less than the standard price. But at normal price, almost every item in the store is 20% higher than the other stores in the area.
In my neighborhood there are seven major grocery stores within a mile radius of my apartment, so I can take advantage of weekly sales.
That is, if I can find out about these weekly sales. I want to be able to go to a website and find out what each store is having on sale this week, and, what the normal non-sale cost is for each item for each store.
The stores treat this information like it was top-secret military data. They threaten anyone who records prices for comparison with arrest. There are signs all over the stores: "No cameras", "no notebooks".
Such contempt for the general public makes me very uncomfortable whenever I go into grocery stores nowdays. I've reduced my shopping at Safeway by about 95% and at Albertson's by at least 60% in the past year. The checkers are amiable but extremely slow. The management is scientifically selected to be crypto-fascist pinhead morons and the whole experience of 'doing' these stores is unpleasent. And I'm just a normal shopper: not a shoplifter or scammer.
The worst grocery store in the country has got to be Safeway. They constantly do bait-and-switch with items that are advertised at reduced price only to have you pay extra at checkout because the fine print shows that the item was not the sale item. Like for example, big signs saying that "Flavor Fresh" brand frozen peas are 79 cents for a pound. So you grab a pack only to be charged $1.29 at the register. Turns out that the peas you grabbed were "FlavorPac" brand which looks like exactly the same package AND was placed directly under the sign saying "Flavor Fresh" peas were on sale.
This happened to me so many times at Safeway that I call it the 'Safeway Shuffle' at the checkout; where they send someone back to check the price when you complain that you were overcharged. I was at the point where I was bringing a caliper to measure the width of the barcode line and comparing it to the barcode on the sale announcement, when I realized that there was a simpler and more elegant solution. Just get the fuck out of Safeway and don't go back!
I'm still amazed that they're still in business. But many places in California, they're the only store for miles around.
So, yes, I'm pissed that companies are collecting all this information about customers without allowing the customers to use it for their benefit. The internet really has changed everything: people really do expect a mutually benefitial relationship from all this information gathering.
This is the point that the business and management people just don't seem to understand. In the coming years, companies that share information with their customers will prosper and those that hoard and hide information will not.
Re:Just pay with cash (Score:5, Insightful)
So they don't care if John Q. Slashdotter is buying Bud or Bud Light, individually speaking. They only care if blue-collar Caucasians or white-collar African-Americans or gay males or straight females or college undergrads or senior citizens are buying it, and where, and for what price. That information is all their marketing department needs to know to tailor their ads.
This is getting rediculous (Score:5, Insightful)
I know people like the idea of having a protective shroud of mystery surrounding them. I hate to break it to you, but it's just a false sense of security. If you do something worth noticing, you *will* get noticed.
Re:This is getting rediculous (Score:5, Funny)
The ridiculous thing is that slashdotters seem to think that their grocery purchases are worth noticing. Massive government databases on what beer you drink? Give me a break.
so they can crowd out everyone else of course (Score:3, Funny)
i think this (Score:5, Insightful)
If you bought directly from budweiser, they would know what you paid for, if it was cold, etc. So pipe down.
They can't really single out a person, or name a customer, there's no privacy issues here, at all. Just a company doing inventory control, to an extreme.
Who you calling paranoid?! (Score:5, Funny)
But drinking Bud always makes me that way.
Re:i think this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:i think this (Score:5, Funny)
In the future, once Coors and Michelobe and whoever have this technology, you'll see an endless nano-war in every cooler as the beers armies try to invade and repel each other.
Re:i think this (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I don't want Budweiser knowing when I choose to buy their beer versus another brands.
Is just classic slashdot overreaction. I swear, if there were an article talking about medical records, some slashdotter, or even an editor more likely, would post the comment "Frankly, I don't want my doctor to know my current medical conditions."
It's ridiculous people. Yes, privacy is important, but only in certain areas. Budwiser has just got an extremely good system for controlling where they send products, what they sell them for, and which companies are competing with them, and how well the competition is going.
It's not like Bud is handing over your drinking habits to the US gov't, and the US gov't upon seeing a southerner switch to a light beer declaring "ARGH! He must be a terrorist! I bet he stopped watching NASCAR too!"
Bud is just managing their stock, and trying to determine how the market truly feels about their product, and the prices they charge. It's all about managing their stock of beer, and where they will advertise.
Please, leave your tin foil hats at home before you post.
Since when... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Since when... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, you are asking, since when Anheuser-Busch sold beer? I really don't know.
Budweiser sells beer? (Score:3, Funny)
They're perfectly welcome to know... (Score:4, Funny)
break out the tin foil hats. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:break out the tin foil hats. (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, but just wait 'till they brew RFID tags directly into the beer! Then they'll not only connect you with the beer, but with every beer you've ever consumed! And they'll know about everything else you do, buy, consume, etc. because those RFID tags will bury their way into your stomach lining and scream "LOOK AT ME, I AM A NUMBER!" forevermore.
(It's funny. Laugh. Or be paranoid and don't
But...but... (Score:5, Funny)
But to make the hat, I have to buy the cans! Classic chicken/egg problem. Arrgg!
In Soviate USSR (Score:5, Funny)
Irritating Paranioa (Score:4, Insightful)
Then, don't buy bud!
They're not tracking individual customer purchases (Score:5, Informative)
They do that in two ways (again, according to the article): a "nightly sweep of their distributors' databases" and 2) on-site visits by sales reps who notice how the store is set up, whether it's selling room-temp or chilld beer (or both), and probably noting the class of customers.
Despite Michael's concerns, there's nothing in there about tying to individual customer purchases or even getting explicit sales data on competitors' products.
Oh no! (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Give me an Arrogant Bastard Ale any day.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Assumption (Score:5, Insightful)
You know I've bought a lot of embarrassing things at the corner market and haven't even gotten discount coupons for them during check-out at a subsequent visit (a shame). And to the point, I've never gotten any kind of marketing material from Trojans in the mail as a result of having bought ribbed at Safeway, so if someone's correlating my personal information with my condom-purchasing history, they're not being very enterprising (if they were, they'd have sold the information to my wife long ago).
What I'm saying is, there's a tacit assumption in the article that somehow your purchases are correlated with your name. That's more likely to be happening at your credit card company's clearinghouse than at the cashier's station.
FLASH: Slashdot editor an idiot! (Score:5, Insightful)
Abuse of "Your Rights Online" (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone can tell you that beer distribution is complicated [mit.edu], this just helps them better their distribution. Take off the tinfoil hats, nothing to see here.
Re:Abuse of "Your Rights Online" (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, frankly, Budweiser doesnt give a shit about the individuals who buy beer... They give a shit that Coors is outselling them by a wide margin in east Cincinnati, and they might want to know "How can we better appeal to Linux zealots?"
But tracking individual beer drinking habits? For what purpose? That's just pissing away resources..
Slashbots should take off the tinfoil hats and appreciate this for the cool and complex data-mining system that it is.
Demographic data mining isn't bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not you -- SOMEONE Yes Bud knows when someone purchased their product but they don't know who and unless they have a survey team out, they don't know why. Stuff like this happens all the time and for the most part it tends to make life better for all of us.
Where we have to worry is when a company starts mining all this data and does track it back to an individual person. When a credit card company or polititical/religious/charity organization can pick up the phone and find out what I watched for TV last night and what books I last bought or checked out at the library, that's when we need to be concerned.
And even if personal data-mining is possible it's no guarantee it will be used. For example, the EZ-TAG scanners on the toll roads you take can easilly compute your average speed between toll booths and issue you a speeding ticket if you were speeding but they don't. Why? Because the toll road comissioners would be voted out of office if they allowed that.
Re:Demographic data mining isn't bad. (Score:3, Insightful)
I always find it amazing what leaps of inference they will make with what they can find out. Here in Vermont, we don't have voter registration, but I kee
Okay, how? (Score:3, Interesting)
what you paid,
Okay, this part is reasonable
when that beer was brewed,
I can see that they might be able to guess at this with a fair degree of certainty, but how do they know I didn't somehow get a 6-pack that's been sitting at the back of the shelf for weeks? Sure, it's got a "born on" date printed on it, but that's not part of the UPC, so how are they getting it?
whether you purchased it warm or chilled,
Again, same thing: it's the same UPC; how would it know, other than in aggregate (i.e. the distributor writing down how many 6-packs are in the cooler when he gets there.) And even if it knows in aggregate, how does it know that the guy at the liquor store didn't move a bunch of warm Buds back into the cooler when the distributor's rep wasn't there?
and whether you could have gotten a better deal down the street.Okay, this one's obvious, too.
Oh come on... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think we may have taken the fight for privacy to a new and illogical low? No wonder people lump tech geeks in with the tin foil hat crowd.
Bud's gift to Michael (Score:3, Funny)
We at Budweiser would like to apologize for any anxiety you may have felt from the recent CNN article. As a token of our esteem, please accept the enclosed Budweiser hat.
Sincerely,
BudMan
BM/css
encl:
Tinfoil Hat, mk II, RFID
*sigh* (Score:4, Insightful)
So much foil your neck is going to snap (Score:5, Informative)
This information allows them to know there market, plan shipments and various other usefull things.
But instead you would prefer to assume they are tracking how many brain killing gulps of beer your drinking so they know when your drunk enough to use there super secret beer tracking brain scanner to download your life and the history of your poor sex life.
This is just good marketing research. (Score:5, Informative)
Their not tieing this to a record of an individual person. They are not providing the data to the "Office of Homeland Security" to determine who the terrorist / non-bud-drinkers are..
They're just trying to see who is buying their beer.
Then, they'll use that data to more effectively target the low-income urban minorities, to keep them under the yoke of "The Man".
Yes, Bud CAN Trace Beer Purchases to Individuals (Score:3, Informative)
Bud is using Information Resources, Inc., which compiles register scan info. This includes those little barcoded keychain dongles that let you get special discounts -- you know, the ones you filled out a form with your personal information to get?
So, no, Bud can't trace EVERY beer purchase to the individual. And they most likely don't really care which particular individuals buy stuff, they're looking at demographic trends. But data on retail sales to individuals, and personal information abou those individuals IS in the system. That's how they get some of their demographics.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Insert (Score:5, Funny)
Give the "you" a rest (Score:5, Informative)
You know where beer was invented, right? (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously, Beer (which the membership of al Qaeda are commanded by God not to drink) is in league with al Qaeda, just like the former secularist government of Iraq (which the membership of al Qaeda was commanded by God to overthrow.) Whatever the article-author may think - it is clear that cool, refreshing beer, or even hobo urine like Budweiser, is more of a threat to our freedoms than the brave members of our law enforcement community.
Therefore, DARPA has asked Anheuser-Busch to help them keep track of the treasonous fluid. Don't get me started on those frenchies and their wine.
Bud? (Score:4, Funny)
Funny, I think I always choose to buy other brands. But that's just me. Having taste buds.
Begs the Question... (Score:5, Informative)
Something tells me that if people were to actually expand their horizons on the beer front, they would discover the Sierra Nevadas, Shiners and such that have nationwide markets and comprable pricing to Bud ($9 a 12-er compared to $11 a 12-er for Shiner). Guess what? These are small companies (relative to A-B) who are not going to fool with BudNETing your habit.
BEER: The cause of, and the solution to, all of life's problems -- HJS.
Re:Begs the Question... (Score:3, Insightful)
Who cares if the beer even has national distribution? Around upstate NY, you can get Saranac, Ommegang, Magic Hat, Wachussettes, or tons of other great beers. I'm sure other parts of the country have similar good small breweries. And these breweries kno
Nothing to see here... (Score:4, Interesting)
A big problem in the beverage industry is 'out-of-stocks'. Most retailers use direct-store-delivery for beverages [bottlers put the stuff on trucks and tell the truck - sometimes in transit - where and how much to drop off at each store]. Before scanners, it could be days before an out-of-stock product was identified. Think about how much product moves off a shelf - per day, per store, per market - having no product on the shelf adds up quick.
The dollars manufacturers can lose due to out-of-stocks is huge. And retailers don't want empty space, and they don't want shoppers not finding their favorite product and going somewhere else. The manufacturer who figures out how to keep their merchandise in-stock efficiently will be a favorite of the retailer, especially if they are a big name like Bud, who also advertises a lot.
Companies like Bud use market research to determine the mix of products. Markets that have a higher Hispanic population may have a higher mix of beverages that cater to this group. But they don't know that 'you' specifically bought their product.
Nothing to see here...unless you're overly paranoid [but no one on
I went to Budweiser Beer School (Score:5, Funny)
LK
Umm.... and how are they getting this info? (Score:5, Insightful)
What, do they have a secret network of x-ray thermal spy sats that record all purchases of their product?
This whole article is overblown and exagerated. Not to mention it doesn't apply to many (most?) stores. At least around here. I don't know of too many corner stores around here that ask for your personal info when you buy beer.
Re:Umm.... and how are they getting this info? (Score:3, Insightful)
This data, crossed with U.S. Census figures on the ethnic and economic makeup of neighborhoods, also helps Anheuser tailor marketing campaigns with a local precision only dreamed of a few years ago.
The original poster overstated it. AB is taking sales and store info from the store and mixing that with general Census data. The article doesn't say anything about matching a particular person (name, age, gender, etc.) with their buying patterns. So I don't think the article is overblown at
Sample Budweiser Tracking Log (Score:5, Funny)
[01-03-04 10:26:54] Beer Location: On the store loading dock.
[01-03-04 11:54:12] Beer Location: In the store refrigerator case.
[01-03-04 19:22:57] Beer Location: In customer's hand.
[01-03-04 19:24:03] Beer Location: On the store checkout counter.
[01-03-04 19:31:44] Beer Location: Outside the store.
[01-03-04 19:32:10] Container Event: Can opened.
[01-03-04 19:32:12] Beer Location: Inside customers mouth.
[01-03-04 19:32:12] Beer Location: Outside customers mouth.
[01-03-04 19:32:13] Beer Location: On the ground.
[01-03-04 19:32:17] Beer Location: In the gutter.
[01-03-04 19:32:23] Container Event: Can dropped.
BUD FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
Guess what
Excuse me, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not like they're putting RFID's in the cans/bottles and finding out how long it took you to polish off the six-pack you bought on Tuesday night.
In fact, as far as I can see, the data is not purchaser-specific and is focused more on the retail outlet's presentation of Bud with respect to other brands. So, who cares? If it focuses their marketing, let it.
New concept (Score:3, Funny)
If you insist on being a covert budweiser drinker, i'd like to introduce the concept of "shoplifting". Walk around and get your ordinary stuff, and put the budweiser in your pocket. Then you pay for the non-budweiser stuff and just pretend you never took the thing. Simple! Just don't get caught or the men with the shiny badges will put you in a really small place with metal bars they call "Jail" or give you those notes that say you need to pay alot of money.
But American Budweiser is piss any way (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.budvar.cz/
All About You! (Score:5, Insightful)
Tin Foil Hat Secured (Score:4, Funny)
Won't do personal data (Score:4, Informative)
2.) This would also make it easy to see who sold the beer that the drunk driver was drinking when he smashed his car into a school bus, further opening up the distributors to possible litigation in our sue-happy society.
Idiocy .. why not comment on the tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is in the wrong category and is misleading, as numerous other people have pointed out.
Why not resubmit with a different category and talk about the novel aspects, like taking what the delivery guys observe about other items on the shelf and the clientelle, and how that gets fed all the way up to marketing plans? That's the real jewel of the article
The Privacy Police Strike Again (Score:5, Insightful)
It brings up some interesting privacy issues, because according to the article 'The last time you bought a six-pack of Bud Light at the Piggly Wiggly, Anheuser servers most likely recorded what you paid, when that beer was brewed, whether you purchased it warm or chilled, and whether you could have gotten a better deal down the street.'
It does NOT bring up any privacy issues, interesting or not. It's marketing data and there's no personal connection to the consumer whatsoever. Budweiser has a business obligation to determine where and how their product is selling.
Just because they say "you" in the text doesn't mean that "you" are part of the data collected. They're just using a purchase that sounds familiar to "you" to give "you" a frame of reference.
I'm surprised none of the privacy nuts have muttered the words "Ashcroft" or "Bush" in this thread yet, for no good reason, as is usually the case.
RP
WTF? Who Cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Have we forgotten the lessons of our youth? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't want them tracking your name, then get your friend's older brother to loan you his ID, or hang around outside the store asking if someone will just pick you up a case.
On this note, why is the legal drinking age in the USA so much higher than it is in Europe (typically, 21 vs 18)? My own personal hypothesis is that the need for cars to get to/from bars in the USA (due to their spread-out nature) means that DUI problems would skyrocket if the drinking age were lowered to 18. Anyone else have