This includes: Identification "of the customer, Internet address, Facebook page information and even the search terms the customer used to find the coupon in the first place.

And all that information follows that customer into the mall. For example, if a man walks into a Filene’s Basement to buy a suit for his wedding and shows a coupon he retrieved online, the company’s marketing agency can figure out whether he used the search terms “Hugo Boss suit” or “discount wedding clothes” to research his purchase (just don’t tell his fiancée). "

You can read the article here:[www.nytimes.com]. Doesn't bode well for using coupons gotten online when MS'ing, IMHO.

They can collect all the data they want and it will not matter a hoot to your shop if/when you use the coupon. Even if they are proficient data crunchers it will take a while for home office to crunch that you also queried anything about mystery shopping and by then you are long gone from the store. One of the mixed blessing about the internet is that it provides so much information, much of it inaccurate, that only generalizations can be made about it without direct click counting--such as which slogans bring more clicks.

This sort of information gathering is why I do not Facebook, Twitter, Tweet, My Space and similar activities. My emails sent do not give my full and accurate legal name, my moniker does not relate to my name on any forum or bulletin board I visit and I try my darnedest to keep my name OFF the internet.

"Re-identification" is a problematic and rapidly growing issue on the net. I think that this trend will grow as it becomes ever to get more data about people. You might not consider the coupon "dangerous" right now, but disgruntled employees have been know to use other means to ID shoppers, and I see this as another up and coming method. YMMV.

[epic.org]

As to FB, etc., there are privacy controls you can set to protect yourself. You can also sign up using a pseudonym. We won't publish images and stories about our son on FB for this reason-when he is old enough, he can decide on his own privacy. Unfortunately, the default settings for FB are to give out info, and people have to actively go into the settings area and modify what and to whom their data is accessible.

Flash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

My emails sent do not give my full
> and accurate legal name, my moniker does not
> relate to my name on any forum or bulletin board I
> visit and I try my darnedest to keep my name OFF
> the internet.

Flash, one of my shopping email addresses does send with my name. If I send an email to a scheduler, or even a friend, they're going to have my name anyway. What is the risk?

My reaction is that a healthy level of paranoia about putting your name and real identifiers out there on the web, especially on unsecured sites, is the better part of wisdom. I have never HAD a problem and I hope to NEVER HAVE a problem. When I send an email to a scheduler it has a variant of my name as where it is coming from and the email itself will contain the full name where relevant. While I send from a secured email system, I have no way of telling what the security is on the system I am sending to.

It is my expectation that while what I send/receive, view and interact with on the internet today may be safe today, there is no way of guaranteeing that it will still be safe tomorrow. Everything done on the internet is stored and saved somewhere. While it is secured with the best of today's technology, that is no future guarantee. The best hope of dealing with hackers, legal abusers and government is that they are so inudated with the information others freely give out that I remain too time consuming to research and untangle.

Not for specifically this reason, but I do have a "dummy" Facebook page I use for signing up for coupons, etc. Profile does not have an identifiable name and although I do use my real name and mailing address to get the coupons, I put in a Yahoo address designed for mailing lists and this type of stuff, etc.

Yup, I have an MS presence with just a dummy name, and that one has all MS friends. Then I have my real one. Same with Twitter-two accounts. And I have many many emails for all different kinds of purposes.

How time-consuming is Facebook for those of you who use it? I am going to get a Facebook page....it's my to-do-want-to-do list...LOL. I tried last week, managed to set up an account but then it wanted me to do my page .... and I wimped out. I guess it sort of scared me when it listed all the computer knowledge I would need that I don't have. I need my son to help me. I will do a real and a dummy.

FB is as addicting and time-consuming as you let it be. You can spend a lot of time there, or not. I find a lot of people spend much time playing all the games and quizzes there, but don't do the games, and I only do quizzes if I am really bored and need amusement. I don't have the time. I don't find FB difficult at all to set up-just import addresses to see if friends are there, or search them by name. Upload a picture of yourself or an avatar-and there are lots of places on the web you can make those if you don't have one. Then just make sure you set your profile settings and privacy settings under the account tab.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2010 10:36PM by dee shops.

After the initial period of addiction, not so much! I do check it regularly, but I'm not on there non-stop. Just figure out how you want to use it -- and then adjust your privacy settings accordingly. Also, avoid unnecessary applications. They slow things down, and some of them are not really legit.

I feel silly, but I just bought FaceBook for Dummies. I have some reading to do.

Flash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They can collect all the data they want and it
> will not matter a hoot to your shop if/when you
> use the coupon. Even if they are proficient data
> crunchers it will take a while for home office to
> crunch that you also queried anything about
> mystery shopping and by then you are long gone
> from the store. One of the mixed blessing about
> the internet is that it provides so much
> information, much of it inaccurate, that only
> generalizations can be made about it without
> direct click counting--such as which slogans bring
> more clicks.
>
> This sort of information gathering is why I do not
> Facebook, Twitter, Tweet, My Space and similar
> activities. My emails sent do not give my full
> and accurate legal name, my moniker does not
> relate to my name on any forum or bulletin board I
> visit and I try my darnedest to keep my name OFF
> the internet.


The other side of the coin when facing this issue, is that we are, in fact, in many, many databanks already. We can never keep ourselves completely out of the system, so I have heard/read more than one person suggest that instead we confuse the system.

If my name is JayTee today, its TeeJay tomorow, on a different site. Then it may be JayBee, BeeJay, Then I may use initial, JT, TJ, JB, BJ, JR, or just plain Jay.

I may live on Oak street, Elm Street, Maple Street, Birch Street, or, Oak, Maple, Birch or Elm Court, Avenue, Blvd or Road.

My house number on those roads may be 1675, 1657, 5761, 6751, or I may get creative and be 16 Tree Circle apt 75.

If I never enter the same information, the same way twice on anything that doesn't require my legal information, then when someone tries to follow me they are going to be tracking 15-20 different people who live at addresses from Portland Maine to Portland Oregon, and a dozen different people who share my actual address.

I know, it's not the perfect solution, but when I get mail addressed to my goldfish, I know immediately who sold my name, and I can toss it without opening it.

Here's an interesting article about the Google hacker attacks last December...
[www.nytimes.com]

Here's an article abut new controls on privacy at FB...
[www.nytimes.com]

And 10 countries weigh in to Google CEO Eric Schmidt on privacy concerns...
[mashable.com]



I should add in editing:

I worked with Eric Schmidt at Sun Microsystems. He is a poster child for non-confrontation. How does that make you feel when you consider what you store on google? Me, I store NOTHING there, even though I use several of their services. Why? Is it not clear? They have a CEO who can't confront anyone...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2010 09:58AM by dee shops.

I look at my facebook less and less. Have it mostly for family and (real) friends. Don't accept anyone I don't know. Definitely serves a purpose, but, doesn't do it enough for me to be on too long.

[www.nytimes.com]

News you cn use (sorry defective lptop keybord t use)
[www.nytimes.com]

[www.siliconvalley.com]

The latest on the Google street view fiasco.

AM..the trick is for you to control your Facebook, not to let it control you. I mean I do not except friends of friends. My family and close friends are accepted, that's it. I go on for about 15 minutes in the evening, and check things out. I get to see family pic's of everyone I never see...some in Mexico City, Chicago, New York, San Francisco...keeps me in touch, and I have re-connected with two "girls" when I was married, we raised our kids together and lost contact. For out of town family and friends, can't beat it!!!