House Party surveys each guest via email before and after parties, "for (information regarding) their brand awareness and use of the brand," Perry says. Using the email addresses, the firm also links to preferred shopper cards held by guests to watch purchase activity of the party products. Perry says they do such tracking in the aggregate, not by individual household.
Smith says only the "mom ambassadors" who are hosting events fill out a survey on guests' attitudes toward a product.
Katherine Albrecht, director of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, says most Americans have preferred shopper supermarket cards. But most people "don't know about the tracking feature" of these cards, which many marketing companies have long employed.
She maintains that if consumers knew their purchase information was collected, even on an aggregate, not individual basis, they would find it "creepy."