For anyone that's been paying attention, Shiny and I began boycotting Walmart many, many years ago (8? Maybe longer), primarily due to their use of RFID to individually track pallets of merchandise. Basically the fear was that they would start putting RFIDs in actual consumer goods. The problem with that is that RFIDs are individually identifiable and they never 'turn off' because they're passive. So, basically, let's say you're wearing a Walmart pair of pants and you walk through an RFID scanner (could be in a door, could be anywhere, and you'd have no way of knowing). Not only would they say "You're wearing Levi's bell bottom pants", but "You're wearing Levi's bell bottom pants number 25324 that we sold to Joe Blow on 13 August, 2009 and you've been to these stores and you bought these other items and you spend a lot of time in the women's undergarment department"... etc etc. Individually identifiable.

Well, it is now a reality. Walmart is now adding RFID tags to individual items.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/walm ... t-privacy/

The article is a little light on details and seems to just assume that these tags will be external to the clothes and removed on purchase... but there's absolutely nothing to stop people from sewing the RFID tags into a seam or something so it can't be removed. And, in fact, there's no way to tell it's even there unless you have an RFID reader/detector.

*edit*
Ok, the source article actually does specify the RFIDs will be 'removable'.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... ts_news_us

I still don't trust it.

I just don't see the added value of such a chip. How can they possible justify it?

So yeah, i'm with you, that's fucked up. If I had a walmart i'd avoid buying clothes and other items there too now. :p You could still pay in cash, though, and they'd never be able to trace it back to you specifically. Of course, if they organised a manhunt of people who bought pants X at Walmart you're fucked.

I never use the 'loyalty' cards at supermarkets either for a related reason. They can gauge your buying behavior almost perfectly with it, which is scary. No supermarket needs to know that I am addicted to product X or buy 500 condoms every month or whatever.

I only us my bonus card when I have items that get a discount with it. So whatever profile the local supermarket has of me is totally warped.

I use one of those 'loyalty' cards, but it's not in my name.

btw, the justified 'reason' for using this is so they can say 'oh, we're out of white "fuck me jesus" shirts in size xx-large'. But they don't need RFIDs to do that... they can do that with existing technology, so I don't buy it.