Should your cup of coffee cost you your data?

A viral LinkedIn post asking whether ordering a cup of coffee should cost consumers their personal data becomes the jumping-off point for a broader examination of how brands are approaching first-party data collection. With third-party cookies on the way out, retailers, coffee shops, and quick-service restaurants have embedded phone number requests directly into point-of-sale systems — often without clear explanations of why the data is needed or what it will be used for. The post attracted close to 50,000 impressions and a flood of comments from consumers sharing workarounds like fake numbers, a sign that the practice is eroding both data quality and brand goodwill simultaneously. The legal risk embedded in these interactions is real. When a business asks for a phone number “to look you up in the system” and then uses it to build a marketing profile, enrich data, and trigger outbound communications, it parallels the FTC's enforcement action against Twitter — which collected phone numbers for account security but used them for ad targeting. The FTC found that use deceptive because the context of collection implied a specific, limited purpose. The same logic applies at retail: if the implied purpose of a phone number request is operational — to complete a transaction — secondary uses for marketing constitute a purpose limitation problem, even without an explicit promise. Regulators are not an abstraction. They walk into the same stores, use the same kiosks, and experience the same friction as any other consumer. The episode closes with a challenge to brands: the same care invested in designing seamless digital journeys needs to be applied to physical collection touchpoints. Progressive data collection — earning consumer trust over time and gathering information contextually as the relationship deepens — is the alternative to front-loading requests that put people off before the transaction even completes. The brand heat maps tracking negative sentiment on social media will increasingly pick up privacy friction as consumers become more aware and more vocal.

**Alysa:** JJ, I have to talk to you because you did this LinkedIn post, and I thought it was really smart. But then I saw it just blew up, and I thought it might make sense to talk about it because it really hit a nerve with a very broad audience, and we write about privacy a lot. So it's interesting when one really breaks through the noise. **Jonathan:** Oh, yeah. I don't know what you're talking about. It was kinda crazy, actually, because I was mostly just ranting about my own personal experience of walking into a coffee shop, and a bookstore and a retailer, and just — everybody's doing it now. Hey. What's your phone number? And you come back with, well, why do you want it? As a privacy wonk. Right? I said, well, why do you want it? And they say, well, let's look you up in our system. And I thought it was a training thing. Right? I thought maybe, you know, front end customer service people just aren't trained. They're saying whatever they need to do. So I wrote about that experience and just, you know, asking the question. I ran — are people sensitive to some of these privacy issues, and are consumers sensitive to it, or is it just me as a privacy professional? And, yeah, the post went crazy, actually. Close to fifty thousand impressions already. You know, who's counting? But the kind of comments were super interesting. Everybody came in with their, like, yep. That happens to me. It's kinda frustrating. There were so many people that came in with the, well, here's the fake number that I use when people ask me that. So I thought, you know, you're not getting quality data anyway. And as I kinda went through all the comments, I just couldn't help feeling — are brands getting this vibe? And, like, I get the reasons why they're doing it. And if for a second, third party cookies were going away, we can't rely on them much anyway. So it's about first party data collection. But you're doing it wrong. **Alysa:** Well, it kinda makes sense. I mean, I think it goes to what do consumers expect, and they came in to get a cup of coffee, and they have five bucks in cash. Why do you need their phone number? Yeah. Like, it strikes an off key tone when you're asking for information in the midst of that, and it's, why do you need that? And then sometimes, like, when you have the person really pressed, like, no. I need it to move forward, and it's confusing. So that's the part that I learned just from the comments where somebody said, hey. It's built into some point of sales systems. So, like, when I sense frustration, like, on the other — I think this was in the burger joint. And I said, look. I'll give you a fake number. And then they kinda got all huffy. I was like, oh, man. I'm gonna spit in my burger now. Like, I was just — why don't you get a burger, man? And then you realize, like, no. It's a step in the point of sale. And as frustrating as it was for me, it was frustrating for, you know, the host. You're in this weird, awkward situation. **Jonathan:** Right. Right. And you start thinking about just some of these other things on the side, like financial incentive programs, the bonafide loyalty. We're thinking, oh, loyalty program. Okay. There's a specific process for that. But when you're doing a kiosk to get your smoothie and it forces you — it's not like there's a long line, and you have to put your phone number in. There's no ifs, ands, or buts, and the phone number is gonna be used for more than giving you your smoothie. And there are different obligations there. And I think just back to UI — it's not just about notices — really thinking about that both from the consumer journey standpoint. And then from a product compliance standpoint, what have you accounted for when you were building that into point of sale? **Alysa:** Yeah. And this idea of you collecting for a specific purpose. In this case, the purpose is just being communicated by, you know, your front of house staff. How do you really take the purpose here? Like, how can I really go back and say, hey? You were just supposed to use this information to look me up in your system, but now I'm getting stuff mailed to my house and getting all sorts of junk, and there's just no way to record that in an in-store environment. **Jonathan:** Right. And then there's the — like, so the FTC had that case with then Twitter about when they asked for a phone number for security purposes. Right? And it's in the CRM. So the phone number got used for other purposes. And the FTC went after them. They're under a settlement order because that was misleading to then use it for this other purpose. And it's the question of if you say no purposes, but the context of the exchange is that I'm only intending to use it for this one purpose — to give you your burger — but it's now part of your profile. And in fact, it's used to bring in all sorts of other data. You could see how that may raise some compliance issues. The thing about it is — the FTC or whichever regulators — cannot look at this. These are things they're just experiencing in their daily lives as people. **Alysa:** Yes. Like, in a similar way online, hey. They can go to Tag Explorer, and they can see which tags are firing and if they're turned off or on, you know, with an opt out. Yeah. In a similar way, they're walking into stores too. They're real people. They're alright. They're seeing this. It's only a matter of time. I have that with — this — the People magazine. They're just like us. Stars are just like us. Regulators are just like us. Totally. Right? And I think they relish these kind of opportunities to walk into stores and be like, I don't like that. **Jonathan:** Anyway, so I really hope — well, thanks for bringing that up. I hope brands kinda get it and start to look at alternatives here. It's super disruptive to the consumer experience. And what's surprising to me is, like, brands and marketers, they put so much care into these digital journeys and in-store journeys. And everyone's frustrated with cookie banners because you have this beautiful digital experience, and then you're just supposed to throw this banner up, right, in Europe at least. But people are doing it here, which is so weird to me. And in a similar way, you've got this great in-store experience, and you're really disrupting it with the, hey. Can I have all these pieces of data on you? It just puts people off. **Alysa:** But here's what I think. Like, that is a very tangible experience, objective. A consumer knows that. They interact with that. And what we do see is people speak up. Right? It's not a passive collection. People notice new technology, and it's confusing. What I see is, like, the heat map on social media. And if you think of, like, brand tracking — the brand tracking heat map of where is there negative sentiment being stated about your brand — I think more people actually are noticing and talking about these things. And so how does that feedback loop go into those brands, PR, heat maps — and then is it like, oh, actually, privacy does matter. Because there was always, how much do people really care about privacy? And I think as people are more aware, they are noticing, and they are talking about it. And so that is reaching different corners within the business to consider. **Jonathan:** Yeah. With you. And there were a ton of brands actually just in this social post who jumped in, like, invited others. Hey. What do you think of this? And you probably looked at their own practices and wondered. I'm waiting for that first brand to come and just say, you know what? We're doing it a little different. We're gonna maybe ask consumers along the journey to slowly collect more info rather than, hey. As soon as you show up, give me the list. Give me your phone number. Give me your address. Like, it's just too much.