New York Times - nytimes.com ← subscription free a few days
“Beer and Pop Tarts” - theledger.com
460 terabytes! 
scary 
WalMart is bigger than the internet! 
Isn’t a terrabyte just 1000 Gigs? Thats a huge amount, but I don’t know if I can believe that the entire internet isn’t that much… I remember when I had Kazaa on the bottom it would always say something like “74,231,908 Users sharing 8,432,982 Gigs” which right there would be 8432 Gigs. Yeah, I pulled that number out of no where, but I’m sure someone could verify it… Anyways Wal-Marts getting pretty scary… Like that new South Park episode will Wall-Mart 
I’m not sure who these “internet experts” are the New York Times quote, and I’m not sure what is considered “the internet.”
Kazaa and other software that untilizes the gnutella network are home computers or “user machines” and not usually dedicated internet servers.
“Direct Connect” is a similar service and they claim to have a petabyte of data available … but most of this data is redundant.
I suspect they are measuring the data available via http protocol that is served on dedicated internet servers.
On Direct connect hubs can be really large, the one I’m usually on has over 100 Terabyte 
But there’s a lot of redundacy there, there can be 50 people that has the same file to download.
But that’s really a huge database though 
That is exactly why I do not apply fore those store discount card at grocery and department stores. I went to one store and brought a lot of stuff. I could see the sales person counting his commission. When he brought me up to the counter to check me out he asked for my name and phone number. I refused to give out that info. He told me that the computer wont let him ring up my purchases without it. I just said, “well I guess I be buying this stuff from some place else then”. I turned and walked out of the store. I try not to use my credit cards or bank cards for any purchases either. I’ll go to an atm and get cash.
Good point milod789!!! I use discount grocery cards, but I never use real information.
Donald Duck and Elton John are known to buy large amounts of frozen pizza. 
… just kidding, I can’t remember what name I used … poor fellow.
I’ll try to explain these cards to those unfamilar. Certain discounts and sales such as “Buy 1 get 2 free” or “10% off potato chips” are for card members only.
Prices without the card can sometimes be a bit unreasonable for some products.(probably related to the below mentioned database)
You provide your name,address, etc. … and approve your spending history to be recorded. They mail you coupons relevant from your spending history database.
Also, you can earn “points” with your card use to cash in, enter contest and get free samples. It’s very alluring to use valid information, but I try to not be that greedy to get free samples and coupons.
I’ll never use real information, and I have just about every card for my area grocery. They ALL have their “special cards” AKA data miners. …
it’s like a real life computer virus is growing under our noses. Walmart has it’s evergrowing 460 terabyte INTERNATIONAL database … and the trend is full speed in similar stores just to keep up with this giant.
I can see both sides to this and see the good use to have groceries properly stocked for food, but this should be anonymous. Too many sandwich baggies might flag you as a drug dealer. … as it has before I’ve read for a soccer mom that baked for her son’s team.
Radio Shack was infamously known to ask all details about you when purchasing something as small as a battery for $2 … name, number … if you were not already in their database they would ask your address. They have changed this policy within the last year and have stopped the practice.
It’s like our world has become infected with data mining spyware, and we need a real life adaware or spybot to wipe them out.
beautiful quote 
I didn’t know it was so bad in the US. Here we have privacy law, but it has leaks… I didn’t recognize this free cards and stuff as RL dataminers but now I do… thanks for the eye-opener.
last week i was called by a company who stated: "we have sent you an email two weeks ago asking you to participate in a survey and you haven’t done so, may i ask you why? "
I was like How do you know my phone number and my email?
she replied: you probably have entered an online contest and in that way your data became available
I was kind of disappointed - I’m careful never to give out my phone number and email at the same time - I cannot remember ever doing so. But now they have my phonenumber and email somewhere connected
- I asked them what email adress they had (i use fake email adresses too) but she couldn’t see it.
I can’t believe I never thought of doing that! Live and learn. 
I get similar things once in a while. What really irritates me is when I get spam mail that has my first or last name (sometimes both)in them. I have every kind of protection on my computer I could think of including: anti virus, fire wall, spybot search & destroy, Spy blocker, and ontrack internet clean up (which I use to clean my cookies a cache every day). Yet still people get my name and email address. In you case, and most likely mine, the culprit is our ISP’s. Nearly all ISP’s sell your personal information.
I know how you feel it burns me up that someone out there, that I do not know, has my name and god knows what other information. It is the computer age and I don’t thin there is any way to keep your private information private if you are on line. 
I’ve almost never entered my real surname; only at places I trust (IRC, for instance: who is going to collect information from IRC?). I get plenty of spam talking to “Tomer Cha”. An easy filter could mark them all as junk, but hey, Mozilla Thunderbird works well enough.
The junk mail it’s self does not bug be. The fact that they know my name does 
I also rarely use my real name so I do not know how these people got it.