Personal Details for Sale, Anyone?

Gotta wonder how much your personal details are worth and how readily available you are to sell them. We have some mega chemists (pharmacies, drug stores, apotekes, etc) called Chemist Warehouse. Most of them are run by Chinese people and I dare say they have studied in Perth and are making the most of their parents' money. Good on them. If it's not the Chinese it's the Indians. They still view Australia as the land of opportunity and I'd hate to see us lose that moniker.

The service changes and being the sceptic that I am I only see it as ultimately benefiting the proprietor. Take yesterday for instance. The missus needed a prescription filled. Instead of waiting by the counter the pharmacist gave her a buzzer and a shopping basket. "I'll buzz you when it's ready," he said. So, you go wandering around the shop looking to spend more money as you become bored. If you had parked your arse next to the counter you wouldn't spend any more money than you had intended to.

My missus thought that there wasn't any air fresheners. We were standing next to a display of them and she said, "No, the natural air freshener." I replied that they are called "windows" and that the pharmacy didn't sell them.

Then I had a thought about what would be the next service/money making idea to be installed from a business perspective. It struck me that instead of the buzzer they take your mobile number (who doesn't have a mobile these days?) and text you when your script was filled. That way they could have all of your contact details in their database. You could be contacted whenever they had a sale and it would cost bugger all for them to market to you. When we sat down to wait for the medication I noticed a sign proclaiming that a free SMS prescription reminder service was available. Damn, they've already stolen half of my idea. Clever Chinese.