@creditwherecreditisdue wrote:
DI wrote:
creditwherecreditisdue wrote:
You do realize that the information from all those surveys you're completing is going into a clearinghouse's vast data repository which maintains a huge dossier of information on you, right? I'm not one for providing others with any more information that necessary.
I don't disclose any personal information. I take surveys about new products before it hit the stores. And sometimes I get to test the products before it hits the market.
They know it is you and all the information is tabulated in a central database. Same goes for those supermarket discount cards. They know what you buy, how much and when. Surveys and offers are one of the cheapest ways for these data aggregators to collect information on your habits, opinions and interests.
The surveys do not collect nor maintain any personally identifiable information. I am in that business, marketing data and technology. What we are interested in on surveys is the statistical data analysis using the law of large numbers. We do maintain demographic categories, meaning if the information came from specific geographical or even income range as a general category, but not personally identifiable. We like to know, for example, what 36-50 year old women from the North East buy. We also like to know as a national average what these different groups buy, do, etc. But we are not interested in the individual. Indiviudal information is irrelevant.
However, you are correct on the shopping reward/affinity/loyalty/discount cards. Those cards are designed to get to know you for "personalized" or what we refer to as "1 to 1" marketing. We will use this to do similar statistical information by calculating the non-personal data attributes to be able to get to know our customer base as a whole, as a demographic segment and then with personal information....as the individual.
