New
#21
Cashing a check requires ID, and makes sense. We were talking about ID needed to get a stupid supermarket "loyalty" card, which just impinges on your privacy. Say to yourself "Why does a store need my ID to sell me groceries?" It doesn't.
Panera's wants my phone number to sell me lunch. Why? so after I spend a few hundred $ on food, I'll get one free cookie, and they'll sell my number to marketers.
The more places you spread your ID around, the more spam calls and spam emails you'll get. I also have various anti-tracking programs on my computers, but that's a whole other topic.
As for news, get it from real news sites, NYTimes.com, CNN.com, BBC.co.uk, PBS.org. Pick one you like and check it daily. You don't need it filtered and slanted through someone' else's site.
The reason the store needs an ID is toprove who you arespam you with all sorts of useless offers and maybe even a coupon for 10% of something that you don't want and never will, it's called marketing and it is now a way of life
A recent "dirty Trick" we are seeing this side of the pond on TV and in print is ads that give some sort of "amazing" information about how well a product "works" and then adds a line "for verification please email us at ..... " which of course gives them a bunch of addresses of those interested enough to check, to spam with marketing
If you can get away with only a fake phone #, great. I shop mostly in Trader Joe's, which has only one set of prices and no sales, so it's not an issue for me.
Sale items at groceries used to be available to anyone who viewed ads or clipped coupons. And if we didn't have the coupon, the cashier scanned one in.
We all have to decide what balance we want between privacy and perks.
I think we're all pretty savvy here, but the majority of the public doesn't use computer forums.