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We give personal data
with every purchase

"90210," I replied when the check-out clerk asked me for my zip code. Already cranky because the darn ink cartridges I needed were priced at almost a third of what the printer itself cost, I was in no mood to cooperate.

How do zip codes translate into choosing Reebok over New Balance or Nike?

She must have known that wasn't really a Hawaii zip code, that it's the designation for a ritzy quarter of Beverly Hills made familiar by a long-defunct television program. Still, she didn't seem to care, dutifully punching in the numbers before reciting a mini-lecture on the store's return policies, handing me my receipt and warning me to keep it handy for inspection when I leave the premises.

Zip code queries have been part of the retail experience for a while now. The first time I encountered it was when I was paying for a pair of walking shoes. I was so surprised that I blurted out the digits without thinking, then went back to ask for the reason.

The explanation was puzzling, though. The clerk said knowing customers' zip codes helped the store with selecting what kinds of products and brands to stock.

That didn't make sense. I mean how do zip codes translate into choosing Reebok over New Balance or Nike? I suspect it has more to do with determining how far a customer would travel to shop or where the chain should locate its next outlet.

Retailers, supermarkets and big box stores have been collecting information about what sells for decades. Many issue those "member" cards that offer discounted prices to induce consumers' use, but technology also allows them to gather even more specific knowledge. Wal-Mart, for example, has accumulated 460 terabytes of data, more than twice the information stored through all of the Internet.

While the practice helps a company figure everything from the amount of toilet tissue to have on hand during a sale to the number of cashiers needed at individual stores, access to customers' personal information, such as credit card numbers and bank card accounts, can also be openings to mine data about mortgages and court records.

Is this cause for worry? It depends on how comfortable a person is about sharing private matters with faceless entities and whether a store's data base is secure enough to resist piercing by those who may use it for nefarious purposes. In my view, the less others know the better.

Whatever the case, product selection and development remains a riddle to me. While there's probably some formula extrapolated from zip codes and other factoids, I'm not able to figure the logic of some of the crazy stuff that's generated for sale these days.

One that confounds me particularly was proudly touted in an upscale catalog that arrives quarterly in my mailbox. This 12-pound device consists of a vacuum chamber that rotates on a 15- by 11- by 11.5-inch base, tumbling "a whole chicken, roasts, steaks, fish, even vegetables or fruits" to infuse them "with succulent flavor." The claim is that food "massaged with internal paddles" produces "fork tenderness" through technology previously available only to professionals.

In other words, it's a marinating machine.

Of course, the family chef could use a plain plastic bag or covered bowl to achieve similar results, but this appliance, the catalogue says, cuts marinating time to just 20 minutes, a boon for the busy cook.

All this for $199, plus shipping and handling. But wait: For another $19.95, you get four flavor packets of dry marinade mix in mesquite, Italian, teriyaki or Jamaican jerk.

I'm sure there's someone somewhere willing to spend 200 bucks on such a contraption, but I'll bet that after the novelty of vacuumed, gyrating pork loin wears off, the thing will gather dust at the back of the pantry.

My printer, at least, is smaller and even if the inks are expensive, it gets used every day.

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