About two years ago, I purchased a VPR Matrix Notebook for review on Designtechnica.com. They must have missunderstood the spelling of my name because Ian Bey was put into their system instead of Ian Bell.
All of the sales catalogs they send me now say Ian Bey. Its no big deal, and I shop at Best Buy a lot, so I am all open for them sending me coupons in the mail. But something else is starting to happen. I am getting junk mail now from companies like Sony, Sprint etc all made out to “Ian Bey”. It just occured to me today that Best Buy is the only company that has my name in their system spelled this way. So did they sell my information to marketers? Are they selling YOUR information too?
How else would you explain all of the junk mail made out to Ian Bey? This scares me. It should be illegal to grab someones information off their credit card for resale purposes. Wait a minute, it is illegal I think? I must have missed some fine print somewhere. Anyways, the next time you are in Best Buy, ask them about this and make sure your name is off any of their lists.
its a data aggregator that bought your profile anonomously — not you specifically.
basically, in a nutshell Best Buy puts all of their consumer data into a blind pool, and the amount they blindly put in, (say 1million customer profiles) is the precise amount they get out.
its why the last 2 years you have gotten so many damn catalogs in the mail….blind sharing of consumer data, to be used in segments for retargeting and remarketing.
andy
Comment by Andy — November 28, 2005 @ 11:03 am
So how are they able to use your information without your consent? I do not remember signing something giving them permission…
Thanks for the info, this is getting more interesting.
Comment by Ian Bell — December 4, 2005 @ 3:56 pm