The Aisles Have Eyes: How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy, and Define Your Power

by Joseph Turow

Overview

The author of Media Today offers "a trenchant, timely, and troubling account of [retailers'] data-mining, in-store tracking, and predictive analytics" (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
 
By one expert's prediction, within twenty years half of Americans will have body implants that tell retailers how they feel about specific products as they browse their local stores. The notion may be outlandish, but it reflects executives' drive to understand shoppers in the aisles with the same obsessive detail that they track us online. In fact, a hidden surveillance revolution is already taking place inside brick-and-mortar stores, where Americans still do most of their buying.
 
Drawing on his interviews with retail executives, analysis of trade publications, and experiences at insider industry meetings, advertising and digital studies expert Joseph Turow pulls back the curtain on these trends, showing how a new hyper-competitive generation of merchants—including Macy's, Target, and Walmart—is already using data mining, in-store tracking, and predictive analytics to change the way we buy, undermine our privacy, and define our reputations. Eye-opening and timely, Turow's book is essential reading to understand the future of shopping.
 
"Turow shows shopping today to be an exercise in unwitting self-revelation—and not only online."—The Wall Street Journal
 
"Thoroughly researched and clearly presented with detailed evidence and fascinating peeks inside the retail industry. Much of this information is startling and even chilling, particularly when Turow shows how retail data-tracking can enable discrimination and societal stratification."—Publishers Weekly
 
"Revealing . . . Valuable reading for shoppers and retailers alike."—Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300225075
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	08/11/2020
Sold by:	OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	342
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Joseph Turow is Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication and associate dean for graduate studies at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of several books.

Table of Contents

1 A Frog Slowly Boiled 1

2 The Discriminating Merchant 24

3 Toward the Data-Powered Aisle 66

4 Hunting the Mobile Shopper 107

5 Loyalty as Bait 144

6 Personalizing the Aisles 179

7 What Now? 221

Acknowledgments 273

Notes 277

Index 315

Editorial Reviews

Turow shows shopping today to be an exercise in unwitting self-revelation—and not only online.”—Wall Street Journal

"Thoroughly researched and clearly presented with detailed evidence and fascinating peeks inside the retail industry. Much of this information is startling and even chilling, particularly when Turow shows how retail data-tracking can enable discrimination and societal stratification."—Publishers Weekly

"Revealing. . . . Most retailers . . . hope future generations will simply accept surveillance and tracking as part of the American shopping experience. Valuable reading for shoppers and retailers alike."—Kirkus Reviews

"A trenchant, timely, and troubling account of the data-mining, in-store tracking, and predictive analytics . . . retailers are using to gather information about shoppers."—Philadelphia Inquirer

“[The Aisles Have Eyes] provides a detailed and well documented description of marketing practices as they have been developed [over the centuries.] . . . This general overview is indispensable for anyone who wishes to address this topic.”—Alessandro Mantelero, European Data Protection Law Review

"The store is a battleground for new contests over privacy and individual autonomy. This fact-filled book performs a genuine public service and should put every shopper on high alert."—Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard Business School

"A revelatory look at the new forms of surveillance in the seemingly mundane world of brick-and-mortar stores. We are indebted to Turow for teasing out the privacy implications of our everyday shopping experiences."—Ira Rubinstein, New York University School of Law

"Turow deftly triangulates an imminent retail future, for better or worse. The aisles have eyes indeed. But given consumer-empowering mobile technology, so will we."—Mike Boland, Chief Analyst, BIA/Kelsey

"A must-read to understand the opaque, pervasive world of data-driven marketing. Turow masterfully uncovers and explains the staggering efforts of retailers to stratify consumers socially and economically."—Joel R. Reidenberg, co-author of Data Privacy Law

"Turow is the best kind of trail guide for those who care about the widespread commercial, cultural, and political implications of these developments. Take heed."—Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, on The Daily You

From the Publisher

“A trenchant, timely, and troubling account of the data-mining, in-store tracking, and predictive analytics . . . retailers are using to gather information about shoppers.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Turow shows shopping today to be an exercise in unwitting self-revelation—and not only online.”—Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal

"A must-read to understand the opaque, pervasive world of data-driven marketing. Turow masterfully uncovers and explains the staggering efforts of retailers to stratify consumers socially and economically." —Joel R. Reidenberg, co-author of Data Privacy Law

Joel Reidenberg

“Turow deftly triangulates an imminent retail future, for better or worse. The aisles have eyes indeed. But given consumer-empowering mobile technology, so will we.”— Mike Boland, Chief Analyst, BIA/Kelsey

Mike Boland

“A revelatory look at the new forms of surveillance in the seemingly mundane world of brick-and-mortar stores. We are indebted to Turow for teasing out the privacy implications of our everyday shopping experiences.”—Ira Rubinstein, New York University School of Law

Ira Rubinstein

“Turow shines light on extremely provocative and important questions about the balance between personalization and privacy in the new, technology-fueled retail world. A great read for any retailer, brand marketer, or shopper.”—Ethan Goodman, SVP, Shopper Experience, The Mars Agency

Ethan Goodman

“The store is a battleground for new contests over privacy and individual autonomy. This fact-filled book performs a genuine public service and should put every shopper on high alert." Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard Business School

Shoshana Zuboff

Turow shows shopping today to be an exercise in unwitting self-revelation—and not only online.”—The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

2016-11-02
Blame it on the smartphone, the technology that is bringing internetlike tracking and surveillance into brick-and-mortar stores.In this revealing account, Turow (Communication/Univ. of Pennsylvania; The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth, 2012, etc.) describes how the same online personalization made possible on your computer by cookies has reared its head in the aisles and checkouts of supermarkets and department stores, where 90 percent of all retail purchases still occur. "Tying into the always-on smartphone carried by about 70 percent of Americans," writes the author, "merchants, brand manufacturers, and their agents are exploiting cellular signals, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, sound waves, light waves, and more to track customers and send them product messages before, during, and after their store visits." This is the beginning of a "great transformation" in retailing: by 2028, half of all Americans are expected to have body implants that can communicate with retailers as they walk around stores, which will allow merchants to gather increasingly specific data on shoppers and redefine seller-customer relationships. In return for capturing data—generally without shoppers' awareness—merchants offer loyalty programs, discount coupons, and other benefits. In effect, they are training consumers to "give up personal data willingly," accept discriminations made between high- and low-value shoppers (with some getting better prices than others), and relinquish "the historical ideal of egalitarian treatment in the American marketplace." Turow writes in a matter-of-fact manner that barely disguises his outrage at the invasiveness of the under-the-radar surveillance at Target, Wal-Mart, and elsewhere, which, he says, demands regulation and consumer education. While sometimes repetitious, his book offers invaluable insights about in-store data-gathering, including frank observations from unnamed industry sources. Most retailers, he writes, hope future generations will simply accept surveillance and tracking as part of the American shopping experience. Valuable reading for shoppers and retailers alike.

Kirkus Reviews