> we'd see bigger noise about grocery store loyalty programs which are basically to track purchases.
In my area, anyway, a huge outcry happened when these programs began to be adopted. Even now, eyeballing people checking out at the local shops, I'd say that only half of people (at most) are using loyalty cards. And many people I personally know who use loyalty cards do so in a manner to subvert the data collection (usually by having one loyalty card that is used by many people).
So it seems to me a substantial percentage of people really are bothered by them.
I don't use a loyalty card at any of the stores I shop at, and anecdotally, there's about a 50% chance that if I say "no" when the cashier asks if I have a card or want to create an account, I will later on discover that they've used a store code to give me the same discount.
This is without any prompting on my end, I never ask a cashier to do this for me.
So apparently it's common enough that some cashiers on-instinct just stick a store card in whenever someone says "no". It's common enough that none of them look at me surprised when I refuse.
Really you only have to use a (loyalty card, credit card) pair once for them to correlate all your purchases. But even then, I bet (store ID, name from credit card) is sufficiently unique in many cases to identify you.
In my area, anyway, a huge outcry happened when these programs began to be adopted. Even now, eyeballing people checking out at the local shops, I'd say that only half of people (at most) are using loyalty cards. And many people I personally know who use loyalty cards do so in a manner to subvert the data collection (usually by having one loyalty card that is used by many people).
So it seems to me a substantial percentage of people really are bothered by them.