Registration required. "It costs nothing to register and will only take a moment."

Somewhat related: I was in an Albertson's grocery store recently, and when checking out, the cashier began the "loyalty card" script we're all used to from big chain stores these days. I said I didn't have a card, and grudgingly considered getting one, even though there aren't many Albertson's in neighborhoods I frequent. Without my having made a face, the cashier invited me to throw it out on my way out the door, as if the suggestion were part of her script. I smirked, and said OK, readying a fake name and address for a form. She handed me a card. There was no form.

It's nice to see a grocery store chain that understands loyalty cards come at a cost to customers. Grocery chains get quite a bit of value out of connecting purchases, store locations and times, which can legitimately be argued as value that gets passed to the customers. They get almost no value from attaching a name, address and phone number to those records, and its this data that most obviously crosses a line.

It's still objectionable to charge inflated prices to non-compliant customers—or even to not do so and provide nothing to value to "members," a faux-paradox I understand but find amusing anyway. And purchase history still has a cost to the customer even without the name. But it warmed my heart to hear the value of my privacy so openly acknowledged in a situation we now take for granted as hostile to our interests.