Protect your data

The only one I would quibble with is #8, having to do with the supermarket "loyalty" cards. Up until recently, the idea of swapping my card with others in order to confuse the data collection seemed like a sweet idea. You are supposed to be able to opt out of the data collection part, but I haven't seen any results from doing that. In fact, they proudly crow how much I've saved, so I know they are still keeping track. But even if they didn't do that, I would never know if they kept quiet about it.

But lately I've been finding that it is useful to me to have them track my purchases, despite how "Big Brother"-ish it feels. Now they can send me a personalized web circular, that lists everything that I've bought that is on sale. And as I've started to use Peapod, their online delivery partner, that too can show me all my purchases in one big list, making it very easy to buy all my regular stuff. So I suppose as long as I'm getting value for my data, I'm okay with that.

Still, the rest of the things in the list are fairly easy to do. It seems almost pointless, these days, to try and safeguard your social security number, as it gets used all over the place. I did opt-out of having it be my Massachusetts drivers license number. So I guess every little bit helps. It's like the old joke about two guys getting chased by a hungry bear. One turns to the other and asks if he thinks he can outrun the bear. The other one says probably not, but I don't need to outrun the bear; I just need to outrun you! So if you can make your data a little bit harder to get at then the next person, perhaps that will save you some headache down the road.

EPIC West: Electronic Privacy Information Center West Coast Office: Hoofnagle's Consumer Privacy Top 10

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