This story was printed from ZDNet UK, located at <http://news.zdnet.co.uk/>
<<...OLE_Obj...>> Story URL:
<http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/emergingtech/0,39020357,39117924,00.htm>
<<...OLE_Obj...>> 'Secret' RFID test draws consumer ire
Alorie Gilbert <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
CNET News.com
November 17, 2003, 11:50 GMT
Wal-Mart Stores and Procter & Gamble quietly tested a controversial new
retail technology earlier this year that allowed P&G employees to observe
shoppers via a Webcam as they removed cosmetics from shelves,
representatives of both companies confirmed Friday.
The test, which took place over a period of four months at a Wal-Mart store
in the suburbs of Tulsa, Oklahoma sparked fresh criticism from privacy
rights advocates, after a story in last Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times said the
"secret study" made "unwitting guinea pigs" of Wal-Mart customers.
"It proves what we've been saying all along," Katherine Albrecht, founder of
Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, said in a
statement. "Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble and others have experimented on
shoppers with controversial spy chip technology and tried to cover it up."
CASPIAN and other consumer advocates are wary of so-called smart-shelf
devices, which require outfitting merchandise with microchips that can
broadcast their whereabouts via a radio signal. Critics say the technology,
also known as radio frequency identification (RFID), could lead to a
surveillance society. CASPIAN has called for boycotts of Gillette and
Benetton over their RFID plans. Retailers, including Wal-Mart, laud the
technology as a next-generation, and far more efficient, step up from bar
codes.
Wal-Mart had plans to conduct a smart-shelf test in a Boston-area store with
Gillette but called it off this past summer, after CASPIAN baulked. The
company continued on, however, with its less-publicised Procter & Gamble
test, in which it sold, from March to July, Max Factor Lipfinity products
embedded with the special tracking chips. A Wal-Mart representative, who
told CNET News.com in July that the company had never sold products with
chips in them, now says he only recently became aware of the Lipfinity test.
A Procter & Gamble spokeswoman defended the test, saying the company posted
a sign near the Lipfinity smart shelf, alerting customers to an electronic
monitoring system. The sign made no mention of the chips embedded in the
packaging of the products, however. The chips, which could only be read by
special readers held no further than a half inch away, were a largely
useless after being removed from the store, she said. The purpose of the
Webcam, she added, was not to spy on shoppers. It helped the company
visually check that the inventory data the shelf collected was accurate.
"We wanted to understand if this technology could help us keep products on
the shelf and in the right spots," said Jeannie Tharrington, the Procter &
Gamble spokeswoman. "We know that it is very frustrating for our consumers
when they cannot find our products to buy, because they are out of stock or
sitting in the wrong location."
Both companies said they have finished testing radio frequency technology in
stores and are now focusing on using it in warehouses.
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