When it comes to loyalty card providers sharing customer data in exchange for discounts, less than half of adults are okay with the practice, according to research from the Pew Research Centre.
The study found that only 47% of adults are okay with a supermarket tracking their shopping habits and then selling that data to third parties in exchange for providing them with discounts, with 32% saying it was not acceptable and 20% saying "it depends".
According to AdAge, one consumer says of the survey: “The 'selling to third party' part makes me worry" before adding, "[on the other hand], I have and frequently use a Safeway rewards card, which I suspect has just such an agreement."
Pew surveyed 461 US adults in addition to conducting online focus groups with a total of 80 panelists for the study.
The acceptance gets worse when the demographic gets older - people aged 50 and above - with 39% saying they would not accept the deals-for-data sharing exchange that defines today's loyalty programs. Meanwhile, 27% of those aged 18-49 would not be OK with the scenario.
In Australia, customer shopping data is big business with Woolworths buying a 50% stake in Quantium to up its customer data credentials. Since then, Quantium has inked deals with Facebook and News Corp to help the businesses fuse their online data with information about what people are purchasing offline to up their targeting capabilities.
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