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News from the USA's State of Washington via komonews.com!
The friendly government folks in King County, Washington, have been caught buying data on local shoppers and mining it to find the home addresses of freeloading scallywags who are likely to own a pet without also having purchased a matching permission slip.
This is one small example of how the big nose of government can end up in unpleasant, uncomfortable places when it is let off its leash. It is also an illustration of how any entity can target and locate people of specific demographics via purchase and exploitation of "private" bulk data derived from common customers' commerce.
I have a strong preference to use only cash for in-person transactions and refuse the use of so-called loyalty or discount cards, which should make such data mining much more difficult, particularly as the numbers of like-minded folks increase.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06 2016, @04:53PM
True; law and/or underlying system architecture will need to change in some areas to prevent wild abuses [kieranhealy.org]. However, we as individuals still have a lot of choice in regards to how much information we release to sticky-fingered corporations. Cellular phones can have the battery blocked with a paper shim until needed; we can refuse to use odious products like Facebook (and now Gmail) and work to convince others to find alternatives; we can use cash as often as possible, and even use cash to pay for pre-paid credit cards nowadays (no personal information needed beyond the purchase ZIP code for MC/VISA et al branded cards - avoid GreenDot, etc.). Businesses that provide non-PO BOX alternate mailing addreses exist, and usually charge very reasonable rates.
It might be nice to imagine a world where the information that pertains to an individual belongs to that individual, but the world has plenty of scheming jerks with little regard for law and morality. The best practice regardless is to control your own information to the greatest practical extent precisely due to the existence of evil organizations such as Google/Alphabet, Facebook, the NSA, etc.