If you want to take advantage of the best offers when shopping in the face of inflation, you need an additional app in more and more shops. The consumer center NRW points out that these discounts also have a price – in the form of data.
The data protection expert Christine Steffen of the German Press Agency warns of “savings apps”. These “seem to be booming because currently every euro is turned over twice before it is spent,” said. “This gives the provider an even more detailed insight into consumer behavior. The providers want to learn as much as possible about the user. They make no secret of that either. In the end, the user pays for the benefits with their data.”
Everyone has to decide for themselves whether it’s still worth using the app, said Steffen: “Anyone who wants to save data shouldn’t use such an app.” However, there are also ways to reduce its data trail when used by not granting or restricting permissions such as location sharing. The consumer advice center has no indications that large providers such as supermarket chains could use the data obtained from the apps in a different way than stated.
Numerous supermarkets and drugstores such as Rewe, Edeka, DM and Rossmann offer their customers apps that consumers can use to receive special discounts. Rewe, for example, sees this as a “trend that corresponds to the digital zeitgeist”. The advertising approach was “adapted to current circumstances such as rising inflation”.
