Skip to content
Login

Peter Bradwell

photo of Peter Bradwell

Researcher

Peter Bradwell is a researcher at Demos. He is interested in digital identity, technology and the ways that information and knowledge is shared...

Posted by Peter Bradwell at 3:54pm on Tuesday, 10th April 2007
I spotted some news today (press release here) about Sainsbury's renewing its contract with the provider of the Nectar cards scheme, Loyalty Management Group.

There are some amazing stats on the 'about us' section of the LMG website.  Apparently...

"Approximately 50% of all UK households participate in the programme. Nectar has given back over £800m worth of rewards to collectors. There are around 6,000 retail outlets where the card can be used to earn points. Nineteen Nectar cards are swiped every second of the day."

That last figure is pretty startling, especially as the scheme was only launched in 2002.  That's a lot of information about our consumption habits flying into LMG's analysis departments.  From the range of companies that run with Nectar - Amazon; B&Q; Currys; HMV; eBay; Argos; Weightwatchers; Sky; Talk Talk..., one would imagine there are some pretty detailed pictures available about which Nectar user likes what, where they like it, and when.  It isn't magic when Amazon guesses you'd like the new Fall Out Boy single - although it arguably makes the embarrassment more scientifically grounded.

The Nectar card privacy policy is here, which seems to provide some tips on how you might be able to modify, if you choose, what happens to the data from your card.

We're looking at exactly these areas on the project For Your Information at the moment.  If you have any thoughts, do get in touch.

Comments

1
so presumably the organisations that are a part of nectar aggregate all this information and use it to micromanage their pricing. i don't know if it's true but my old flatmate who worked at safeway, told me that they used to reprice everything at the end of every week, often shaving off a few pence here, adding on a few elsewhere. I don't know if that means we get a bum deal or not but either way, presumably what 's more interesting is when communities of interest can use similar technologies to  share information amongst themselves that helps them go about their own business - like last fm. Take it a step further and the benefits of "knowing what you want before you need to know it" would presumably be very helpful to activists, people with specialised learning requirments, very sector specific business support so on. but that relies on people being willing to share information about more than just what music they like, but who they are meeting, where they are going and so on. like linkedin but with RIFID. I'd do it, if I thought the people i was sharing information with were worth it.
Posted by Charlie Tims  at 10:46am on Friday, 13th April 2007

LOGIN to add comments