Ever wonder what Businesses do with their Loyalty Program data?

Ever wonder what Businesses do with their Loyalty Program data?

You probably know about these Reward / Loyalty programs, perhaps, you belong to one of 10 of them. They come in a variety of offerings, Hotel chains, Airlines, Rental Cars, perhaps you might even have a gasoline card or two. 

Wonder no more, about what happens to your data (usage, purchase history, etc...) there is a hidden side to all Reward / Loyalty programs. Businesses sell your data!  Did you know that? You would have if you read the terms and conditions when you were joining. No worries, neither did I, or not to the extent I understood the degree of the intent.  However,  I assumed this was taking place until I read this article...https://slashdot.org/story/21/08/29/1758218/facebook-has-trackers-in-25-of-websites-and-61-of-the-most-popular-apps  where I learned that Fakebook has a huge program to buy up your info on the cheap.

Sale of Reward / Loyalty data sets - includes your data. Yeah, $164 is all it costs to purchase your data in 2020, way back in '13 your data only cost about $13 (or a 12.6x increase in 8-years) To me this translates to there is more competition for your data.

Ever wonder why at times you see odd Companies working together? Recently I got an email from Microsoft reminding me of my O365 renewal and they were using Starbucks partnership as the Carrot. Seemed at the time an odd pair, now this makes even greater sense to me. Data sharing among friends, what is the harm?

What else is FB doing?  Seems they have a robust program where they are out there tracking data for BI (aka Business Intelligence) recall on FB you are the product!!!! So, BI benefits FB to have trackers, just about everywhere, you can imagine. As the article also points out they have trackers in 61% of the most popular apps. Don't worry, its not 100%; yet.  Oh, they also have trackers on 25 websites, not sure how current this data is (i.e. how many more sites are seeking to sign away your data to data collectors)

Ever have privacy come to the forefront of your mind? What do you do to protect your online privacy, sure its hard but we can make it harder on the sale of your data.  Some simple tips, don't have just one email address - spread them around to different providers makes it harder on the BI (not much but every piece helps). Don't sign up for free raffles / give-away (you are giving away your info). How often do you clear your browsing history and cookies?  Do you use a non-tracking browser like Brave? Do you use a VPN to further protect your browsing? Don't go down without a fight

What happens when these programs expand to include FR (aka Facial Recognition)? Wow, won't that be a fun world; not.

Know that I am not talking about Robinhood's Payment-for-Order Flow info, that is a different beast. 

Resources to learn how to protect yourself

Electronic Frontier Foundation - https://www.eff.org/about

Summary - I have learned several things recently, don't be reckless with your data, and know when and how you are giving it away. Seek ways to opt-out of how / where they utilize your data. Protect yourself each and everyday, stay current on your knowledge. Spread the word to at least 3-4 people and have them do the same!