A recent story in the New York Times about “Web coupons” tells how the massive, under-the-radar data mining industry just hammered one of the last nails into the coffin of online "privacy". In case you are naïve enough to imagine you have any privacy at all online – this story proves you have none.


How will "Web coupons" affect your personal health information, from prescriptions to DNA to diagnoses?


The problems created by "Web coupons" go far beyond different pricing of products to different customers. "Web coupons" can directly enable job and credit discrimination and political ads designed especially for you. "Web coupons" enable businesses, employers, banks, and government agencies to locate and use your sensitive health information online to discriminate against you.


"Web coupons" enable faster, more accurate, and more complete theft, aggregation, and sale of every personal health "footprint" you leave in cyberspace.
 For example:
Will Wal-Mart tell you that they did not hire you because you used a "Web coupon" to buy diabetes medicine?
Will your bank tell you it won't offer you a car loan or mortgage because you used a "Web coupon" to open a new account that enabled the bank to link to your footprints on health Web sites and your online health searches?
Will a "Web coupon" from FOX TV or MSNBC for discounted or free downloads of TV shows enable political parties to precisely target online and snail mail political ads to you?

What do you think?

No one is warned that if they use a "Web coupon," they surrender the use of all personal online informaton and online searches forever to RevTrax (and other data mining corporations).

No one is warned that using a "web coupon" can destroy their online (and offline) privacy forever.
 "Web coupons" exponentially supercharge the collection, aggregation, and sale of all online personal information. "Web coupons" appear to offer you a discount to buy something, but their real purpose is to get you to give data mining corporations the best keys to the online treasure chest about you.

Key quotes:
“When the consumer redeems the offer  ("Web coupon") in store, we can track it back, in this case, not to the Google search term but to the actual Facebook user ID that was signing up.”
"None of the tracking is visible to consumers."
"RevTrax can also include retailers’ own client identification numbers (Amy Smith might be client No. 2458230), then the retailer can connect that with the actual person if it wants to, for example, to send a follow-up offer or a thank-you note."

If you use "web coupons," who you are (demographics and IP address and Facebook account) can all be used and sold to corporations to sell you products AND to discriminate against you. This is very clearly an unfair and deceptive trade practice.
Where do Congress and the administration stand in the war over whether law-abiding Americans' rights to privacy - i.e. to be "left alone" - will be restored in the Digital Age? Will the FTC prosecute RevTrax for unfair and deceptive trade practices?

New York Times story http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/business/media/17coupon.html?pagewante...

Deborah C. Peel, MD is the Founder and Chair of Patient Privacy Rights. This blog post is a comment on the storyWeb Coupons Know Lots About You, and They Tell.