CO: Pizza store franchisee

[russotto]

Originally posted by perth
well, it wasnt the language that bothered me so much (hearing a 70 year old lady say 'fucking' is pretty funny). what got me was the idea she had that if i had her zipcode, i could magically determine her whole address and add her to our mailing list.

~james

Given a name and a zip code, you COULD determine her whole address and add her to your mailing list. Well, unless the name was too common.

There's even a fancy name for this sort of thing, though I've forgotten it.

[perth]

good point, but i dont think we gathered names. although i suppose if they had a sufficiently determined data-mining team, they could hunt it down, especially if they paid with a check or credit card.

now that i think about it, i bet if they got a certain # of hits on a zipcode, they could decide its a good idea to send mass-mailings to that zipcode. i dont know. marketing is funny. but cussing grandmothers are funnier.

~james

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by perth
now that i think about it, i bet if they got a certain # of hits on a zipcode, they could decide its a good idea to send mass-mailings to that zipcode.

In some cases, that's exactly what they do.

Another scenario works like this: Let's say that the Best Buy nearest to me gets a ton of hits from 19114, 19115, 19116, and 19154 (all zip codes in my part of town). They may start putting more ads in local newspapers (i.e. not only the Philadelphia Inquirer, but the "local" ones, like the Far Northeast News-Gleaner).

Cussing grandmas ARE funny, but I'm already used to that. Perhaps I inherited my grandmothers' potty mouths, God bless 'em.

[perth]

the worst i ever heard my gransmother say was 'chit' and she did it under her breath. my grandfather, on the other hand, was highly skilled in the art of cursing. i learned some of my best from him.

~james

[juju]

There's a pretty good article about this over at Kuro5hin.org, including a comment from a programmer who helped write POS software that matches zip codes to credit card names in order to obtain addresses.

[perth]

very interesting link. i guess i should have known that we have the technology to sneakily match people like that. although from what i gather, it really only works when the customer pays by credit.

~james

[russotto]

My "Radio Shack" address when I lived in the DC area was often

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20101

(Actually, I used several zip codes, because I usually couldn't remember the real one, so I made one up on the spot)

That address is fairly well-known, except apparently by Radio Shack clerks who never batted an eye.

I hope Bush and Clinton enjoyed their Radio Shack ads.

BTW, recently radio shack announced they won't be asking for the addresses any more.

[wolf]

Originally posted by perth
i despise when im asked for my phone number, however. in that case i politely refuse or simply rattle off the first 10 numbers that pop in my head.

For just such an emergency, I have the phone numbers of MANY police stations and county crisis hotlines rattling around in my head ...