Subject: [NEXTEL-1] RFID- The Other "Goof"- Gillette Joins WalMart To Drop RFID Plans-

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 01:06:39 -0400

Consumer groups are lining up against this technology everyday.

Anal-ysts are hyping this more than Bluegoof.

"research firm estimates the global RFID market will
grow to more than $3.1 billion by 2008, as standards materialize and prices
begin to dip."
http://www.e-insite.net/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA309789

As Walmart & Gillette have found this is the
other "Goof"-RFID
-------------------------------------------------------
Gillette, Wal-Mart drop plan for radio ID chips
Plan had raised concerns over privacy of consumers
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 7/10/2003

Customers at the Wal-Mart store in Brockton
won't be getting miniature radio transmitter
chips with their Gillette Mach 3 razors, after all.

Boston-based Gillette Co. and giant retailer
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have backed away from
plans to test the controversial chips at the
Brockton Wal-Mart store. ''We didn't do the
test, and we're not going to,'' said Wal-Mart
spokesman Tom Williams.

Williams said the decision reflected a change in
business strategy, rather than a reaction to an
Internet-based campaign against the technology,
known as radio frequency identification, or
RFID.

Privacy advocates were concerned that the
technology would be used to track consumers'
purchases without their knowledge or consent.

But a leader of the campaign against the technology, Harvard University graduate
student Katherine Albrecht, said she thinks public pressure drove the decision.
''I think they're running scared,'' said Albrecht, founder of Consumers Against
Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering. ''I think they're retreating because
they've realized that they've got a real dog on their hands.''
RFID technology is being touted by some experts as the logical successor to the
bar codes found on virtually every retail product. Each chip, the size of a
pinhead, transmits an identification code when it comes within a few feet of a
special detector. If RFID-tagged cartons of Gillette razors were brought to one of
Wal-Mart's 103 US distribution centers, a detector mounted at the loading dock
would instantly detect their radio signals and add them to inventory. Williams
said this kind of automatic inventory control would bring large cost savings, and
Wal-Mart plans to deploy such systems in its warehouses by 2005.
But the company had planned to go even further, by putting the tags onto
individual Gillette products, which would then be stocked on a ''smart shelf'' at
the Brockton Wal-Mart. When a customer picked up an item, the chip would notify a
detector on the shelf, which would inform the store's inventory computer.  If a
customer picked up an unusually large number of razors, the system could be
programmed to identify him as a possible shoplifter and record his picture with a
digital video camera.

News of the Wal-Mart test alarmed privacy advocates like Albrecht, who fears
products with RFID tags could let companies snoop on the private lives of
consumers. Earlier this year, similar fears led the Italian clothing firm Benetton
to abandon a plan to put the chips in some of its clothing lines. Critics warned a
consumer wearing such clothes could be identified the moment he passed a detector,
perhaps one mounted at the entrance to a shopping mall. Benetton insisted that it
had no such intention, but gave up on using the chips anyway.

Wal-Mart, meanwhile, had begun building a prototype smart shelf at the Brockton
store this spring. But recently the company had a change of heart. Williams said
criticism from privacy activists had nothing to do with it.

''We just never followed through,'' he said. Williams said Wal-Mart decided its
distribution system was the best place to deploy the technology, not the shelves
of its retail stores. ''That's where we really see the advantages for us, on the
case and pallet level,'' he said.

Gillette spokesman Paul Fox said his company is still committed to retail testing
of RFID technology.  Indeed, the British supermarket chain Tesco began selling
tagged Gillette products at a story in Cambridge, England, in January. And in
April, the German supermarket chain Metro hired supermodel Claudia Schiffer to
demonstrate the technology in Metro's ''future store'' in Schiffer's hometown of
Rheinberg.

The Auto-ID Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a major site of
RFID research.  Kevin Ashton, the center's executive director, said he wasn't
surprised Wal-Mart backed away from its plan to tag retail products.
''I think all these companies, not just Wal-Mart and Gillette, have been going
through a process of figuring out what they want to do with this technology,''
said Ashton, ''and they're all coming to different conclusions.'' He added that
Wal-Mart probably wasn't motivated by criticism from consumers. ''There hasn't
been any great public outcry that I'm aware of,'' Ashton said. ''I'm not seeing
the man on the street up in arms over this.''

Other US retailers are still interested in testing the technology. The Associated
Press reported yesterday that the Rhode Island-based drugstore chain CVS Corp.
plans to test the chips in packages of prescription drugs. A CVS spokesman told
the Globe that no such tests are currently underway.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/191/business/Gillette_Wal_Mart_drop_plan_for_radio_ID_chips+.shtml

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