Sinister

Interesting story from the New York Times about Walmart's information gathering.

Scary:
By its own count, Wal-Mart has 460 terabytes of data stored on Teradata mainframes, made by NCR, at its Bentonville headquarters. To put that in perspective, the Internet has less than half as much data, according to experts.

Scarier:
"They can find out your mortgage amounts, your court dates, your driving record, your creditworthiness."

Scariest:
By next October, the company will require its biggest suppliers to tag shipments to some of its distribution centers with tiny transmitters that would eventually let Wal-Mart track every item that it sells.

The worst thing is that the Walmart people are using this data to further squeeze their suppliers. They are trying to effect a system in which the manufacturer owns a product until the point of sale. And gets stuck with all the excess and liability.