Karen, I haven’t used grocery affinity cards for a few years, although I’ll probably start again soon. I always just tell them I forgot my card, so they enter the store one, but I think they’re starting to catch on.

Leah, that’s exactly the kind of stuff I’ve been thinking about more and more lately.

John, I’ve run into this issue, too. I always thought the zip code was for GIS/demographic types of data, and sometimes I’ll give the one for the town over from me. One of the few Google services I’ve wholeheartedly embraced is Google Voice because it essentially gives me a throwaway phone number that I can use in exactly these kinds of situations. I use it for all of my shopping/ordering transactions now, because I don’t care if Google knows about the solicitations these companies are calling me with. I highly recommend this approach (hmmm… another blog post — how do we game these systems?).

Thanks for the great comments, everyone!

What gets me are the stores that ask for your phone number as you purchasing goods. They track individuals through phone numbers–unique identifiers. Some stores have backed away from asking for personal phone numbers and use zip codes instead. These stores don’t want to be held legal liable in case their system is hacked. Often times I say that I don’t provide my phone number, which earns me either a response of “that’s okay” or a dirty look and some attitude.