[spuz]

I think the privacy implications for a shopper at Amazon Go are the same as a shopper who shops at Tesco with a credit card. The company can use your credit card to track exactly what you buy already and many people seem to be happy with that (even going so far as to sign up for loyalty cards).

[patrickg]

But it should be possible to a) use a prepaid credit card or b) pay with good old cash. That way it is still possible to buy without getting tracked (while all the others that don't care use the loyalty card).

[spuz]

I agree it should be possible but unfortunately the technology doesn't allow it. In this case I would give the analogy of online vs offline shopping. Ideally we would be able to buy goods on amazon.com with cash (or perhaps bitcoin) but the technology doesn't make this feasible.

[mirceal]

don't know about tesco, but I know about Costco. You need to provide your membership card every time you buy. So Costco definitely knows your complete shopping history.

Also any online shop (Amazon included) has a complete history of everything you've ever bought.

For brick&mortar shops you would be a fool to assume they don't mine your shopping history based on your credit card (or some sort of hash that's computed from your CC#).