FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact: Katherine Albrecht, CASPIAN Founder
kma@nocards.org 603-465-9093
(Please do not publish this number or e-mail address.)

Consumer Protest Against Albertson's "Preferred Card" Program

DALLAS (Jan. 22, 2002) -- Disgruntled Dallas/Fort Worth area grocery shoppers will demonstrate this Saturday against Albertson's new "Preferred Savings Card" and call on the store to discontinue it. Shoppers are concerned that the new card program invades their privacy, results in discriminatory pricing, and betrays Albertson's long standing "no card needed" advertising promise.

Date: Saturday, January 26th, 2002
Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 Noon
Venue: Albertson's Supermarket, 7730 N. MacArthur Blvd., Irving, TX
(The store is on the west side of MacArthur Blvd about one block south of Hwy 635).

Each time a customer shops at Albertson's using a "Preferred Savings Card," an itemized record of her purchase is made and stored in a database. Data collected in this way is used to create profiles of individual shoppers. These highly detailed profiles can be subpoenaed for use against individuals in lawsuits, divorce settlements, insurance cases, and criminal investigations.

According to supermarket industry publications, card programs are typically paid for by raising the non-card prices on items throughout the store to penalize those who refuse to sign up for a card. This form of two-tiered, discriminatory pricing is designed to make the card-based "sale" prices look more attractive, when in reality the card sale prices are often higher than the everyday prices of the competition.

Josh Jalowiec, one of the Dallas-area shoppers organizing the protest, said, "We're incredibly disappointed in Albertson's. Not only did they go back on their word to us, but now they expect us to sacrifice our privacy in exchange for so-called 'discounts' which are not savings at all. We want them to go back to good old fashioned savings without the surveillance. Until they do, we are calling on shoppers to vote with their feet and shop somewhere else."

The protest is spearheaded by Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN), a national grass-roots consumer group formed in 1999 to oppose supermarket "loyalty" or frequent shopper cards. CASPIAN's efforts are directed at educating consumers, discouraging marketing strategies that invade shoppers' privacy, and encouraging privacy-conscious shopping habits.

For more information, visit CASPIAN's website at http://www.nocards.org.

CASPIAN
Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering
An information clearinghouse and resource for community and national action

© 1999-2005 Katherine Albrecht. All rights reserved.