Here's two links for you to visit: Bonus Card Swap Meet and NoCards.org.

Then go out and trade your cards with complete strangers. This will destroy their ability to abuse your privacy by ruining the database. If they can't depend on narrowing it down to specific people then the personal buying habit data will be worthless. They no longer be able to SELL lists of what YOU buy.

I'm all for businesses being able to effectively track their inventory. But they can do this just fine without having to take it to this extreme. There's no need for them to track what each person buys. It's enough for them to be able to track what gets bought as a whole, over time. This alone is MORE than enough to let them do really good inventory management. They don't need to track it to the individual buyer level.

By tracking what individual people are purchasing all they're gaining is building another set of data that they can SELL to outside companies. If you're sick of junk mail and spam, well, this is how you get plugged into those systems.

Ask yourself this, how would you feel if you employer got a hold of your grocery buying list? Would you want them to turn around and use it against you? Let's say you buy a lot of junk food or stuff high in salt or fat. Would you want them to turn around and sell this information to your health insurance company? Would you want them to start charging you more because their computers can now determine you're some sort of greater risk? Would you want your bosses to fire you because they're vegetarians and the records show you've been buying meat products?

Act now, stop giving them your personal information. Trade the cards with others, take the discount but don't give them your data! Then contact your representatives in government and ask them what they're doing about this abuse of your privacy.

Don't laugh, it will happen. And who's to say it won't happen to YOU?