By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
It seems that window shopping is best left to actual windows instead of Microsoft Windows.
My beef with Home Depot started when I needed to buy a Water Bath Canner, a large 21 quart pot used to boil mason jars for food preservation. I thought I had one around the house but couldn’t find it. A few days ago I bought about 150 pounds of tomatoes, pears, and apples from the Mennonite grocery store nearby to can for the winter. I didn’t see a water canner there so I thought I would look at Home Depot’s website–they have a store nearby–and enquire if they had one. I used their search option with the words “canning pots” and a page popped up with several pressure canners. I clicked on one, read what it had to offer, and decided to pass.
I needed to move onto other things and about two or three minutes later I decided to catch up on today’s news. I opened the website for a major news source and immediately I was handed the first “Thank you” for considering Home Depot; a banner ad wanting to sell me pressure cookers from Home Depot. Then came a second and a third in a row from other major websites. All I could do was roll my eyes in dismay. I probably should have known better than to visit without an anonymous web-client, but I didn’t suspect Home Depot would sink low enough to resort to web spamming–much less selling/providing my information to third parties–I thought it would be o.k.
I really do not think Yahoo News and CNN need to know that I visited Home Depot to buy a pot. It makes me wonder what other information Home Depot is willing to hand out so readily. Luckily for me I did not visit the FBI’s website after Home Depot’s showing I am interested in Pressure Cookers.
Previously, I wrote how I fired my corporate pharmacy and returned to the Mom & Pop pharmacy in town. I should have taken my own advice for Home Depot.
Perhaps the Mennonites down the road will have one for sale. It’s now Sunday so I will probably have to wait an extra day. Oh well, at least I know with certainty I won’t see an ad for canning pots in the program card for the United Methodist Church when I attend service next Sunday.
Yeah, I am sure that Home Depot can articulate that buried two pages below within the fine print of their “privacy statement warning” they can claim that I consented to this by visiting their site. Or, that they did not violate the terms of this so called agreement.
Well, here is my privacy statement: Goodbye.
By Darren Smith
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.