Why even your local grocery store wants your digital data

From Facebook and Instagram to Amazon Prime, most U.S. consumers have an online footprint that is growing daily. Email addresses, phone numbers, shopping habits, birthdays and more are all being rolled into a monetizable data profile the companies and data brokers are using to better understand the needs and wants of consumers. Often this is without the knowledge or informed consent of the consumers. A study from the University of Pennsylvania found 79% of Americans feel they have little control over what marketers can find out about them. This is what experts are calling "data fatigue," the idea that many consumers know their data is being collected but feel there is little they can do to stop it. The same study found that more than half of respondents did not know the full extent of what companies can do with their data. Now that data acquisition model is moving offline, to the aisles of your local grocery chain.