As we progress farther and farther into the last days, we see much greater examples of the explosion of knowledge that the prophet Daniel wrote about. The problem is that while knowledge may be exploding, there is a decided lack of restraint. Governments and Large corporations throw lots of money at reasearch into how the human mind operates. The idea is that the more is known how the mind operates and how decisions are made, the more influence they can have over WHAT those decisions and opinions are. Which is why this article on ABCNEWS.com gives me chills
-----
Scientists say the research involved in neuromarketing will help in the
understanding of human psychology, but critics say it's all about getting
you to spend more money.
Playing With Your Mind
Is Neuromarketing Research Giving Advertisers the Keys to Your
Decision-Making?
By Dean Schabner
ABCNEWS.com
Jan. 13-- If you feel like advertisers get into your head now, you ain't seen nothing yet.
That's the fear expressed by some critics of research in an area known as neuromarketing, which one executive at the company funding the research said gives "unprecedented insight into the consumer mind," and will allow advertisers to get customers "to behave the way they want them to behave."
Full Article:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Business/Living/neuromarketing_040113.html
=-=-=-=-
I have to ask, If a person is ordering curtains to be prepaid and deliverd to the store for pick up, WHY does JC Penney (or any other store for that matter.) deem it important to have the customer's address?
Have you noticed that there are more and more businesses that require more and more information about their customers without a valid reason other than advertising? Have you noticed that they are becoming less flexible with people who do not wish to give out this information?
Personally, If I make a cash-paid-in-advance purchase, I don't think they need this information.
-----
From: Me Myself And I
Today I went to a JC Penney store at a mall in the Baltimore, MD area.
I wanted to purchase some curtains but the store didn't have them in
the size that I wanted. The saleswoman said that she could order them
for me, and I could pick them up at the store in a few days.
I was required to pre-pay for the curtains, and then they wanted my
personal information. I didn't mind giving my phone number (too
much), because I knew they would have to call me in order to notify me
that the curtains had arrived. But next they asked me for my home
mailing address.
I asked why they needed my home address. After all, the curtains were
going to be sent to the store for me to pick up... not to my home. And
I had to pre-pay for the curtains, so it wasn't like I was going to
stick them with an unsold item. The saleswoman said it was "company
policy". When I said that I wasn't going to give them my address, I
was told that they would be unable to order the curtains for me. So I
walked away from the sale.
Then I tracked down a manager and complained. I was told that yes, it
was "company policy" to require a home address for order sales. When
I pressured her to give me a valid reason, she said that it was so
that the company could send me catalogs and other advertising mailings
later on. I told her that was a perfect reason for me NOT to want
them to have my address. I said that I wouldn't purchase from them
under those circumstances. She said there was nothing she could do,
because "the company" required it.
Of course, I could have given a fake address. But I wanted to make a
point that their violation of my privacy cost them a sale. My
impression was that both of the JC Penney people who I spoke with
thought that I was being unreasonable in not wanting to purchase
anonymously, though.
Original Usenet post can be found on google.com at this url:
http/www.google.com/groups?selm=q9dj00hf0qtkrmvfsv7aq3mcasduq0hdet%404ax.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain
=-=-=-=-=-
CCTV (Closed Circuit TeleVision), It's everywhere these days. All in the
name of security of course. Watching out for speeders, shoplifters,
muggers and of course, terrorists and generally any suspisious persons
(Just who gets to decide what constitutes suspicious?) Next time you're
out somewhere look around the ceilings, rooftops, and light poles. You
know those dark plastic inverted domes hanging from the ceiling in your
local Wal Mart? Those are CCTV units. There's more of them in more places
these days than ever before. They're in parking lots, busy intersections,
ATM machines, Malls and public buildings.
CCTV may be a legitimate tool for security, but it's excessive use is yet
another way to chip away at the concept of privacy.
-----
Be good, somebody might be watching
By John Gillis
Think you oughta be in pictures? If you venture into downtown Halifax, you
probably already are.
Take a stroll around the block bordered by Carmichael, Grafton, Prince and
Argyle streets and you could appear on 17 private security cameras. While
the closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras aren't hidden, they are easy
to miss.
Full Article:
http://jvangurp.com/halifaxcams/text/herald_oct_27.htm
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Message-ID: <q9dj00hf0qtkrmvfsv7aq3mcasduq0hdet@4ax.com>
Subject: JC Penney requires address info
Newsgroups: alt.privacy
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 22:37:32 GMT
Big Brother really is watching!
Surveillance systems proliferate on downtown Halifax streets
