McDonald’s might have a huge dossier on you

Ba-da-ba-ba-ba: Release the files—the McDonald’s loyalty program files. After requesting a copy of his data from the burger chain, a Wired journalist received a 515-page file on his McDonald’s habits that was far more detailed than expected, he wrote this week.According to Wired’s Reece Rogers:The McDonald’s loyalty program tracks purchase behavior, like favorite menu items and most-visited locations, which is apparently fairly standard.The “concerning” part was how McDonald’s used this data to predict how often he’d visit in the future, what he’d spend, what he’d order, and the likelihood that he’d stop being a customer (0%).“We use information such as past purchases to provide a more engaging, personal customer experience,” a McDonald’s spokesperson told Wired. The loyalty program’s 210 million active users are also the “single most important digital metric” for McDonald’s, its CFO said earlier this year.Zoom out: The average US consumer belongs to more than 15 loyalty programs as of 2024, per BCG, and some may be exploiting your data (in addition to selling it). A Washington Post columnist recently discovered that Starbucks’s loyalty program may have given him fewer discounts because it determined that he was willing to pay full prices. Consumer Reports alleged similar schemes within Kroger’s loyalty program.—ML