Posted 3/16/2004 04:26:00 PM by Douglas

Why does RFID sound like a bad idea? For starters, any time Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense are in agreement, you know nothing good is going to come of it.

The two organizations have become poster children for radio frequency identification (RFID), a technology that will undoubtedly help businesses and other enterprises do a better job of tracking goods, but also makes privacy advocates uneasy. Both organizations are requiring their suppliers to use RFID tags if they want to continue doing business with them.

With RFID, tiny radio transmitters are attached to products. These tags, as they're called, emit radio waves carrying data that's read using special scanners. RFID tags are like high-tech bar codes, only they can hold more data and their signals can be received over a far greater distance.

I'm sure the aluminum-foil hat crowd is all over this one, but my question is who is going to pay for this madness? Is it really going to save retail outlets that much money, and if so, does that mean we could expect to see a dip in prices? I could personally care less who knows how much mayonnaise, grapes, or Blue Bell ice cream I eat. But it ticks me off when stores make me carry "discount cards" so they can save money.

The Department of Agriculture wants to use RFID to track livestock from birth to the dinner table to avoid breakouts of mad cow disease. And grocery stores envision a day when your shopping cart is so full of "smart" goods that they can alert you to specials in the next aisle based on what you've already picked, then tally your bill without taking anything out of the cart.

Sure they are. They want to be able to point out how to save you money.