Google Mail - Anygood?

[TooNice]

You'd be amazed how much value there is in that information - I read a book last year called "Tescopoly" which was very interesting from that point of view.

Could you provide an example or two from the book? I do not doubt that there is some value in information on customer profiles but to what extent can such information be used to the detriment of the customer? I used to be very privacy conscious, and I still am compared to most of my family - but lately I've realised that I haven't looked up enough about the implications. I don't think that reputable companies would use the information fraudulently. I suppose there is a risk as to what could happen if the information is lost/stolen. But there must be more risks directly liked to those mega-corporation than that? Spams are annoying but reputable company also tend to follow the instruction when you ask them to stop.

[Saracen]

Could you provide an example or two from the book? I do not doubt that there is some value in information on customer profiles but to what extent can such information be used to the detriment of the customer? I used to be very privacy conscious, and I still am compared to most of my family - but lately I've realised that I haven't looked up enough about the implications. I don't think that reputable companies would use the information fraudulently. I suppose there is a risk as to what could happen if the information is lost/stolen. But there must be more risks directly liked to those mega-corporation than that? Spams are annoying but reputable company also tend to follow the instruction when you ask them to stop.

I don't think there's any implications of data being used fraudulently, though I suppose it might depend in quite how widely you interpret the word "fraudulent".

In terms of you be defrauded directly, no, I don't think so. In terms of the information being gathered and subsequently used in ways the people providing it didn't expect, weren't aware of and quite possibly won't like, well, without a shadow of a doubt, yes.

There are several questions that can asked about these loyalty card schemes. The first two are what kind of information they can gain about you, and the second is what they do with it. The level of information they can gain is quite surprising, because the power of modern computers can sort and analyse vast amounts of data, and it how now reached the point where not only can they extract general market trends (which products sell, and which don't), which is fair enough, but they can trend who buys them, and target advertising, store placement, special offers, bait-and switch and direct mail as well. That's not fair enough.

At a simplistic level, suppose your "profile" shows you're buying beach towels and sun block? A fair inference is that you're preparing to go on holiday. Your next clubcard vouchers might include an offer for travel Insurance, with the offer that you get double points if you buy it. Well, being a lazy so-and-so that can'[t be bothered to research the market, and because you get double point,s you buy it without properly looking around. But did you get good value for money? And were you aware that you were targeted precisely because of your spending patterns.

Well, maybe you don't care that you were targeted with that offer, and maybe you're happy that it night not be the best or best value insurance, but it sure was easy.

But how about this. Not all customers are equally profitable for a supermarket. Some buy primarily premium products despite price, and others buy the discount offers. And some "cherry-pick", in that they'll only buy BOGOFs or similar deals. Well, if some customers are buying high-profit items, and some are buying the loss-leaders only, a valuable piece of information to a supermarket is which loss-leaders the profitable customers are buying. What, after all, is the point of the BOGOFs or loss-leaders. Well, there might be several points, such as driving up volumes of a particular product, but the biggest single reason is to get customers into your shop instead of the bloke over the road's shop. Great, but which customers do you want - the profitable ones or the ones that cherry-pick the deals and give you minimal profit .... if any?

So, if you can profile your customers and identify which ones are the cream, you can drive advertising, product placement, product offers and even what items or lines you stock accordingly. Suppose it turns out that the people that buy XYZ cereal are the low-income buyers that hunt out the loss-leaders. This, of course, is most likely to be because that's all they can afford. But you, as a retailer, want the maximum out of your customers (and don't be under ANY illusion that that's what drives supermarkets) so if you can identify product lines bought only by your poorest (and least profitable) customers, are your profits best-served by continuing to stock those lines, or would valuable shelf space (and certainly the prime shelf space) be better utilised carrying product lines bought by your more affluent customers? The answer, IMHO, is self-evident.

But to be able to do that, you need to be able to identify who your more profitable customers are, and then track and analyse what they buy .... and don't buy. And you can't do that without reward/loyalty cards.

And what's the next inference of knowing which products are bought by your more affluent customers? Well, the better off a customer is, the less he's going to be affected by (or even notice) price rises, especially by a few pence at a time. So, which products get the price rises, or the biggest price rises? The ones bought by the people who either won't notice or won't much care, of course.

So now, if you're at the poor end of the spectrum, you'll find some of your favourite BOGOFs no longer appearing, because it's been identified that those deals aren't being bought by the customers the store really wants to lure from it's competitors. You could even find product availability vanishing, because it isn't profitable enough. But if you're at the other end of the market, you'll find prices rising. After all, if you're buying premium meats, cheeses, etc, is a few pence more going to stop you buying it? Clearly not, or you'd have been buying mid-range or value products to start with.

All this is just a taste of what can be done. Most supermarkets will tell you they don't do it. That may even be true. For now. But do some research on how datamining is used in the USA for a taste of what's coming here.

Finally, of course, are inferences over how such data might be used in the future. Suppose in years to come, you're after private health insurance? Do you really want your insurer (who, incidentally, has a tie-in with or maybe even is owned by) your supermarket, to know that you've spend a couple of decades smoking, buying excessive amounts of booze and the fattiest, salt-laden and high calorie processed foods you could find? You are highly unlikely to ever even find out if such data is used to profile your health risk, and therefore to load your health premiums. But insurance companies work on the premise of "premium reflects risk". That's (obviously) why your accident record affects your premium - because it infers or indicates something about your driving habits. It's also why they want to know how much mileage you do.

It is quite conceivable that the availability of such information will determine what your health insurance costs you, and could even determine whether you can get it at all, let alone afford it.

Ultimately, it comes down to this. These cards are in use by just about all the large retailers. Ask yourself why? They cost millions (or hundreds of millions) in vouchers and deals, so why do it? Because it's in their interests to do it, of course. They make a lot more from it than it costs them, or they wouldn't do it. So how? Well, if it's just by getting a bigger share of the market than their competitors, then that may not be too much of a problem .... though personally, I think that some, most noticeably Tesco, are already far to large and powerful and that that is NOT in our interests. But is that the only reason? I don't think so.

And finally, personally, I don't want junk mail. Not ever, not from anybody and not about anything. No exceptions. I don't trust that supermarkets gaining ever more detailed information about me is not going to end up being used for targeting junk mail. But, if they don't have that detailed information about me, they can't use it. And, of course, by taking a loyalty card, you're creating a relationship with a retailer that can then be used to justify sending you marketing mail. Giving corporations my address can't always be avoided, but giving it to supermarkets sure can.

And have you noticed how often people want your phone number, even your mobile number? And, when you ask why they want it, it's because "it's on the form on the computer" is usually the best answer you'll get. I determine who gets my phone number on the basis of whether them having it is in MY best interests or theirs. I can't think of a single reason for telling a retailer what my home or mobile number is, how many (if any) kids I have, how many times I holiday abroad (if I go on holiday at all), what car I drive, what my occupation is or my total household income. Yet it doesn't stop many of these loyalty cards asking some of these questions.

Is all this concern paranoia? Nope, it's pragmatism. I know the type of things that could be done with detailed information, and I know that some of it already is. I don't trust that more things won't be done in future, because I don't trust the likes of Tesco with ANY information on me that isn't absolutely necessary. And I know for a stone-cold fact that they can't datamine about me on information they don't have.

For me, it's really that simple - they can't abuse what they don't have. I don't see details of my extended buying habits as being used to benefit me, and certainly not in ways I care to have them used, so whether it makes any real difference or not, I do all I can do to make sure they know no more than the absolute minimum I can achieve. And a part of that involves avoiding discount/loyalty cards, and paying cash almost all the time .... and certainly on the very rare occasions I go into a Tesco.

[Splash]

Could you provide an example or two from the book? I do not doubt that there is some value in information on customer profiles but to what extent can such information be used to the detriment of the customer? I used to be very privacy conscious, and I still am compared to most of my family - but lately I've realised that I haven't looked up enough about the implications. I don't think that reputable companies would use the information fraudulently. I suppose there is a risk as to what could happen if the information is lost/stolen. But there must be more risks directly liked to those mega-corporation than that? Spams are annoying but reputable company also tend to follow the instruction when you ask them to stop.

Can I point you to the website run by the campaign setup around the book? http://www.tescopoly.org/

Data Protection laws protect the data that the supermarkets have on you (hell, even if they didn't that data is so valuable you can bet your bottom dollar that they'd guard it with their lives), so the chances of the info being sold on are slim, but Saracen pretty much nails it.

Know the risks and the rewards, then balance one against the other and come to a decision.

Anyhoo, back on topic

[Saracen]

..... so the chances of the info being sold on are slim, but Saracen pretty much nails it.

Maybe, but I'm not so sure.

They're not going to sell the raw data, but some, certainly, sell and/or share analysed data. Nectar does, for start.

So sure, I don't see Tesco selling data to Sainsbury or ASDA, but would they supply targeted names and addresses to non-competitors? I don't know, but I certainly wouldn't bet against it if they thought it was in their interests to do so. I certainly don't trust them not to.

[Twigman]

Have you seen the scheme in america where people swap loyalty cards.
http://www.cockeyed.com/pranks/safew...e_shopper.html
http://epistolary.org/rob/bonuscard/
Loads in google about this. But for cards like student discount cards where it's just a set discount there is no reason why you shouldn't swap with people.
If the whole nation swapped cards I think you would find they wouldn't bother with it anymore.
Interesting stuff anyway.

[Lourdes]

Is the add-on compatible with other webmail services? To be honest, until it implemented it, I didn't see it as particularly better than other webmails I've used (other than Lycos which is the only 'really bad one' I've used). Now that they've added it though, I don't want to do without.

It was a greasemonkey script that I packaged into an extension. There may be similar the others, at a glance I see there's one to switch to secure hotmail login but I don't know if that makes the whole session secure.

[acrobat]

It only came out in 2004, hehe.

I love gmail mainly because of the simple inteface and their spam filter seems better than most. The only downside I find, which really annoys me at times is the lack of custom folders, labels do a similar job but still not quite the same as being able to filter mail to a specific folder.

Err yeah I suppose I can't count very well, I did say nearly though just in case And I did use it from pretty much day 1 when it was invite only.

p.s. As for the privacy thing, I personally am not too bothered because I don't think I've ever said much in an email I wouldn't chat about in public or whatever. There is a potential for nastyness there though, and it's not even just a case of them willingly selling their info, but they can be forced to hand over info by 'organisations' like the American government. I wouldn't be too happy about them reading all my previous correspondence. I still doubt that would ever come back to bite the average person though, unless you are terrorist.

[Brewster0101]

It sounds like you just have a problem with how outlook is configured,or with that installation.

Outlook 2007 really is a brilliant mail client; its fast, very reliable, with a great UI and its very customisable. Looking at your system spec you should have no problems running it at all..so I would suggest the steps below, or re-installing outlook as a worst-case scenario.

Who provides your email at the moment? The most obvious cause of your email being slow with outlook 07 could be that your using IMAP. IMAP is great in some situations (mainly for syncronising to allow online and offline access to email) however its terribly slow if you have a large amount of email or lots of folders...I would stab a guess that you used the auto-configure option for your email in outlook, and I know that for some silly reason outlook seems to default to imap in most cases if you use the auto-config tool.

So, I would first check that your email account is setup to use POP3/SMTP and *not* IMAP, and then see if things improve for you. After all, you (or your work/university) have spent money getting outlook 2007 so it would be a shame to waste it.

The email provider should not make a difference to how fast outlook runs - so you'd have no real advantage to using gmail..unless you wanted to use the web interface for it. Personally I've been using Gmail since it first started and I love it - the fact that mail is never deleted is brilliant..excellent for finding old emails that I would otherwise have deleted by mistake

Outlook 2007 is just very slow to start up, as is every office 2007 application. Word is silly slow, hate it. Was even looking at open office as I just used this on the parent in laws computer which is pretty old and works faster than my office.

I am sue to change my hard drive in a week so a fresh install of office 2007 maybe in order, otherwise reverting back to 2003 or even stick with Outlook express