the Sugar Conspiracy 

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Thursday, March 25, 2004 I always feel like somebody's watching me . . . Shoppers in a suburban Tulsa, Okla., Wal-Mart were unwitting guinea pigs earlier this year in a secret study that two of America's largest corporations never expected you'd know about. In the study, uncovered by the Chicago Sun-Times, shelves in a Wal-Mart in Broken Arrow, Okla., were equipped with hidden electronics to track the Max Factor Lipfinity lipstick containers stacked on them. The shelves and Webcam images were viewed 750 miles away by Procter & Gamble researchers in Cincinnati who could tell when lipsticks were removed from the shelves and could even watch consumers in action. The study involved a new technology, known as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), that enables retailers to use radio signals to electronically track products in warehouses and on store shelves, a technology critics fear ultimately could be used to track people once they leave the store. Manufacturers and retailers are looking at ultimately putting the tiny chips into everything from soda cans and cereal boxes to shoes, clothing and car tires. This worries privacy-rights advocates who envision tags in shoes and other personal items being linked to credit-card information so that retailers and government agencies could spy on the public. More on RFID tags. And just to make it more ominous, the article reports that "Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has required that its top 100 suppliers tag their products by 2005." They're talking about tagging pallets and shipmentst, but the article goes on to say it's only a matter of time before tagging is done on individual products. Wal-Mart is so huge and carries such weight, that by demanding their top 100 suppliers to tag their products, they are effectively setting an industry standard. Other retailers will soon follow. They'll essentially have no choice. posted by chris at 3:15 PM   ------------------

    

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