Nicholas Gerlich, a marketing professor at West Texas A&M University, agreed that email addresses provided by consumers for digital receipts “will most likely be used for marketing purposes at some point.” “As a result, firms can do all kinds of targeted promotions on the cheap, and you will receive all kinds of junk emails,” he told me. It would spread your email address even more widely among businesses, and would provide yet another way for marketers and data brokers to link your identity with your personal behavior.įor businesses, digital receipts are “a cheap way to get your email address and to build their database to track your shopping habits,” said John Zhang, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
It also cited the presence of chemicals on paper receipts, including bisphenol-A and bisphenol-S, which can pose a danger to children and have been linked to reproductive harm.Īt the same time, though, a switch to digital-only receipts probably would be another nail in the coffin of your privacy.
The Green America study concluded that use of paper receipts “has the same greenhouse gas emissions impact as driving over 450,000 cars each year.” The environmental considerations are highly compelling. Paper-preferring consumers can decide for themselves if they want to shop there. The current thinking appears to be that if a store wants to go digital-only with customer receipts, it can. While there’s clearly a trend toward paperless transactions - particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic creating boom times for no-contact payments - there isn’t yet a state or federal law that lays down clear rules for such practices. The bill stalled in the Legislature amid opposition from the paper industry and some business groups. Supporters of the legislation cited the epic receipts from CVS as a good reason for such a law. In 2019, they rejected a bill - AB 161 - that would have required stores to ask customers if they want a paper receipt before printing one out. Shouldn’t it be my choice if I want one?”Ĭalifornia lawmakers apparently don’t think so. “They’re nice for record keeping and tracking. So, yeah, the ability to get a paper receipt is kind of small potatoes by comparison. Needless to say, Strauss is totally stoked about the current Perseverance mission to Mars. “My projects have been to every planet in the solar system,” he observed - a boast few of us will ever make. Strauss told me he designed the solid-state data recorder for the Cassini spacecraft, which spent 13 years observing Saturn and its moons, as well as making contributions to numerous other missions. Strauss works for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, these days as a self-described “paper pusher” but in the past as an electrical engineer. Let’s pause briefly to note that he’s by no means opposed to technological progress. He reluctantly gave the saleswoman his email address, sure that it “will now be part of some big database” and that his inbox inevitably will start getting more spam. “It was the first time I ever encountered this.” “If I wanted one, I’d have to get it by email.” “She said they don’t give out paper receipts anymore,” he recalled.
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