Reece Rogers, a senior writer at Wired, requested a copy of the data McDonald’s keeps on him based on his use of the loyalty app.
Take a quick look through your cell phone. Do you have any rewards or loyalty apps? Maybe from your go-to grocery store or coffee chain or fast food restaurant?
Reece Rogers, a senior writer at WIRED, has been using the McDonald’s app for years. He spoke with “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal about his experience requesting a copy of his data from fast food giant — and receiving a 515-page report.
“While when you sign up for any kind of customer loyalty app, you know there’s gonna be some kind of data collected, I had no idea that it was going to be this extensive and granular,” Rogers said.
He was particularly surprised by how much his data was used in predictive algorithms to estimate things like when he would next visit McDonald’s, how much he would spend, and how likely he was to stop visiting McDonald’s entirely.
Click the audio player above to hear the conversation.
