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From a backpacker's forum:

In Seattle, authorities bought a list of every Seattle resident who regularly bought dog food. The authorities then compared this list to the list of people who had licensed a dog. If you regularly bought dog food but did not have a licensed dog, they sent you a nasty letter. At first, Safeway denied selling the information, but later fessed up.

I tried to verify this, but all I got was a ton of pages about dog food with no mention of customer lists. I didn't believe the first paragraph about Roomba, but it turned out to be mostly true.

ventsyv
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WGroleau
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  • There doesn't seem to be tags for "privacy" or "snooping" which seemed the obvious choice for this. – WGroleau Aug 22 '17 at 20:18
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    I live in Seattle and have heard this, and other claims regarding Seattle taking some controversial steps with regards to unlicensed pets. Just commenting in case that helps with the notability of the claim. – Chris Hayes Aug 22 '17 at 20:59
  • Your comment gave me an idea for a different search string. The first hit was http://www.seattletimes.com/life/pets/your-grocery-bill-may-help-king-county-track-unlicensed-pets/ which makes no mention of Safeway. But what I quoted could conceivably be a distortion of the King County thing. – WGroleau Aug 22 '17 at 21:10
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    "At first, Safeway denied selling the information." This part is certainly true; [here](http://komonews.com/news/local/king-county-using-grocery-store-data-to-target-pet-owners) is the news article. – Laurel Aug 22 '17 at 23:17

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