Sainsbury’s boss defends decision to sell customers’ Nectar card data (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 11 months ago by thehatfox@lemmy.world to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

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[-] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 27 points 11 months ago

Asked if the Nectar prices were genuine discounts, Roberts said: “They’re absolutely genuine great value prices for customers, what this is about is rewarding loyal customers.

“Is it a genuine discount?”

“Its genuine great value!”

So, no, they aren’t genuine discounts. Absolutely cop out avoid the question

[-] elgordio@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

I suspect that nectar prices are a way to get around the trading standards legislation that requires items on sale to have been offered at the higher price for 14 days. The nectar price isn’t a ‘sale’ so it doesn’t apply. Not that I have collected any evidence for this but it seems like my experience.

[-] TheMongoose@kbin.social 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Sainsbury’s and Tesco have also faced criticism for creating a two-tier pricing system, offering much lower prices to loyalty card holders.

“The vast majority of customers in supermarkets want to use Nectar because it saves them money. If you spend on average £80 this week and use Nectar Prices, you’ll save about £10 on your shop so customers really like that value.

Get in the fucking sea. Of course you'll 'save' money with a Nectar card if they have wildly inflated prices for non cardholders. The fact that this is happening in more and more supermarkets makes me want to start setting them on fire, and the bastards that come up with these plans.

[-] Fake4000@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

That's because his/her data isn't included. The decision would be different if that data included his/her shopping history.

[-] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

That's no fun for the guardian. Gotta get those clicks with controversial misleading headlines. Totally not a tabloid, totally....

What this article fails to explain is what exactly they are selling and how that is matched up to groups of users. It also fails to explain how advertising is linked to anonymous users at the other end and how throughout all of this it's just a random ID they are targeting rather than Mr Phillips from Doncaster. It doesn't explain at all the mechanism to do this because it doesn't match the narrative they want to push of outrage. It only mentions it in passing and of you don't already know how these things work you're still none the wiser.

Never stop being the guardian, never stop. 😂🤣😂.

[-] HeartyBeast@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago

It looks like the Guardian is basing this off reports from Dispatches and The Times and iy seems that it's really mot quite clear how it works. Here's the de-paywalled Times report: https://archive.is/s5eDe

... a “clean room” can match specific shoppers, or small groups of shoppers, with specific television viewers and work out when they are likely to be the same person.

Few experts are willing to reveal the exact science, but the software can make a remarkably accurate match. This is because supermarket shoppers reveal so much about their income, lifestyle, location and family set-up from what they put in their baskets — and because television viewers expose so much about their habits, income and location from what they watch.

For example, the experts will know when someone has stopped watching I’m a Celebrity, but still watches Coronation Street, and where they log on to watch it. “With data matching, they tend to use ‘lookalike data’ — this person [on a supermarket database] looks very much like the same person [on a broadcaster’s database],” explains Duff.

They can also add in third party databases, such as Facebook, and the matching is uncannily accurate, as well as being privacy compliant, according to experts.

[-] Primarily0617@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

you can't "anonymize" data

ask the people outed as lgbt by netflix's anonymized data set

[-] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 1 points 11 months ago

You absolutely can anonymise data.

However it's also true that of you don't do it correctly users can be identified. Sounds like Netflix didn't do it properly. I don't know, do you have a link I could look at?

[-] Primarily0617@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

anonymising data is a treadmill problem

what might work now won't hold up to the de-anonymising techniques of a few years from now

so no, you can't really

[-] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 1 points 11 months ago

Create anonymous UUID, store interactions against this in a separate table, ensure PII is removed prior to storing. So instead of Max Reboo has purchased a subscription to jugs and hooters it's user 12345678901234576 has purchased jugs and hooters. How can a future treadmill de-anonymise this? For sure if the storage is done badly then you can track back to a particular user.

Also, once again, can you link to the netflix issue you quoted above please. Thanks.

[-] Primarily0617@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Create anonymous UUID, store interactions against this in a separate table, ensure PII is removed prior to storing

which is more or less exactly what netflix did -> the whole thing's not that hard to find on google

but you need something to distinguish users at least a bit or the data's equivalent to sales figures

you combine that "not-quite-pii" with other independent data sources that have similar "not-quite-pii" and build a complete picture

the treadmill effect comes from active research in this exact area trying to de-anonymise data sets finding new techniques to get around old ones

[-] Gazumi@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

A defence that will create long tern harm to users. Will trash mine and shop elsewhere

[-] smeg@feddit.uk 3 points 11 months ago

what we hear from customers, they don’t want to be sent lots of marketing and media messages that aren’t relevant to them

Yeah sure, if you phrased it as "do you want all the spam or slightly less spam?", if you'd been honest and said "do you want us to track you and sell the data to the highest bidder?" then a few more people would have your you to fuck off. I'd like you to sell me the products I actually want and fuck off with every advert full stop, but one step at a time, eh?

[-] DoneItDuncan@feddit.uk 1 points 11 months ago

You know, they don't actually check the address or name you put in when registering for a nectar card. Imagine what would happen if enough people accidentally put the wrong details in there - I can't imagine the data would be worth as much if it's mostly nonsense.

this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023

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