A consumer's quest to keep shoppers' data private

For millions of people, using a discount card at the local grocery store has become routine, a sure way to get the best prices, more convenient than coupons, and as unremarkable as a shopping list.

But 14 years after the cards were first introduced, a few iconoclasts are questioning the cards' value and using the Internet to sabotage their market authority.

These supermarket rebels claim that the stores receive an indisputable benefit from the cards - the capacity to create and sharea profile of a shopper's every taste and habit.

"Ever since the cards first came out I [have] felt an apprehension about them," says Rob Cockerham, a 30-something graphic designer who recently launched a one-man campaign against the cards.

What troubles Mr. Cockerham most is the requirement to provide a name, address, and other personal information to get a card.

"I've worked with databases, and anyone who's worked with them knows information gets piled up," he says. "Say I buy vodka and adult diapers at night - I don't want that information to be stockpiled. I'm sure the stores have the best marketing motives, but it makes me nervous."

This year his website, Cockeyed.com, won a Webby Award - an international prize for exceptional websites - for its tongue-in-cheek descriptions of pranks Cockerham played in his hometown, Sacramento, Calif. Now he has turned to a stunt he hopes will have repercussions anywhere there's a supermarket that honors his Safeway Club Card.

Cockerham calls the scheme the Ultimate Shopper. Visitors to www.cockeyed. com/pranks/safeway/ultimate_shopper.html can order free stickers with copies of his discount card bar code. Slap a sticker on your own card and, presto! you're a Rob Cockerham clone in the eyes of Safeway's computers, creating a single shopper with superhuman powers of consumption - and an entirely inconsistent record of purchases.

Some 500 people in the United States and Canada have joined Cockerham's revolt since he started offering the bar code in January. A section of his website features photos of faux Cockerhams holding up their cards or grinning over prizes they won - a bag of cookies or a bottle of juice - for being such enthusiastic consumers.

Safeway, based in Pleasanton, Calif., knows about the prank, but has decided to tolerate it so far, says Brian Dowling, a company spokesman.

"We don't view it as something that hampers the operation of our card marketing program," Mr. Dowling says.

"From the way it's been described to us, it's on a small scale. I'm not sure it even registers. I think [Cockerham is] raising an issue that we don't see as an issue. We do work aggressively to protect our customers' data."

In addition to Cockerham's campaign, other websites let people trade their cards or print their own bar codes. Still, the numbers of false cards is tiny compared to the legitimate data available to stores, says Trish Brynjolfsson at Catalina Marketing, the St. Petersburg, Fla., repository for some 100 million customer shopping records.

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