Was IBU for walking out of shop at checkout?

[PersianKittens]

I'm not naming the shop, but this morning, I went into a big high street retailer to collect a click and collect order and whilst I was there, I had a look around and picked up a few more things.

Went to till, total came to over £150, all fine, sales assistant asked if they could have my email address for the receipt. I said, no thanks, a paper receipt is fine thanks, she said, sorry we don't do paper receipts, we need to have your email address to provide that. I looked at her and said I had never come across any other retailer doing that, but she stood her ground and said in an assertive tone, I need your email address. Again I refused and said, if that's the case, I'll just leave it and walked away. Last time I gave a retailer my email in store, I was bombarded with daily emails, despite unsubscribing via the link at every email received.

WIBU to have walked away as I didn't want to hand over my personal data? Driving home, I did think about creating a separate email account for this reason, but then again, why should I? surely my preferences should be respected.

You can forward them to priority or important

I refuse in both of them and they are fine with it. I’ve never been anywhere that insists.

True. I get lots of emails and have lots of folders (including an 'Important Documents' one for receipts etc) but time is short and I have more interesting things to do. I'm very good at organizing my paper receipts though and manage to keep on top of that system.

YANBU Well done. Someone has to stand up to these bullies. It would have been so easy to have rolled over, but if we all push back things might change.

These shops don’t want your data for marketing purposes. They can’t add you onto their mailing lists without explicitly consent due to GdPR.

they CAN however use your data to track your behaviour. that’s what they are using your data for.

They want to know what you are buying, why you are buying, how you are shopping (online/instore - which stores), they want to predict what you might also like to buy, when you are likely to return, and what else you might like.

they use the data from your email and your payment details and your personal accounts to pull all of this together so they can predict what else you might like - and therefore target upsells.

I bet there are a fair few of them who DO use the email addresses for marketing purposes, though - possibly through a third party.

Of course they know they aren't legally allowed to do this, but it could be very hard to prove that you never opted in (or, as companies do it much more often, didn't opt out of every single permission/cookie at every single stage of contact).

If the worst comes to the worst, they often figure that it's more worth their while just paying the fines and... who knows, possibly blaming it on a hacker?!

...Even if they do 'only' use your data to monitor your purchasing patterns and create a profile for you, surely they must still be on extremely dodgy ground if they've only asked for "your email address so that we can send you your digital receipt" -- as they always do - without any mention whatsoever about exploiting, profiling and manipulating your data for marketing purposes?

Oh I agree with you @SprayWhiteDung

the first party cookie element means that consumers SHOULD be able to dictate how their data is used, whether their data (behaviour tracking etc) is being used to train AI tools and automation and that entire minefield.

but quite frankly, unless you pay in cash, in person for everything there’s no way out of it all now.

The shops can use your email address for marketing because they can rely on the so-called "soft opt-in".

Who bins carrier bags these days? They’re like gold dust in our house.

If your DH placed the order, I'd just give his email address if he's happy to give it. My Dunelm they do ask if I want paper or email, I don't like email ones, I don't always receive them anyway as they misspell it and then I don't have a receipt at all