Last month, Tara Kuczykowski walked into a Target store in Columbus, Ohio, pulled out her mobile phone and handed it to the cashier.
The cashier scanned the digital coupon on the phone's tiny screen, and Kuczykowski got $1 off sandwich-size Ziploc bags. Target got something, too: another entry in its database about her.
Invented over a century ago as anonymous pieces of paper that could be traded for discounts, coupons have evolved into tracking devices for companies that want to learn more about the habits of their customers.
Although they might look similar to the ones in Sunday newspaper circulars, many of today's digital versions use special bar codes that are packed with information about the life of the coupon: the dates and times it was obtained, viewed and, ultimately, redeemed; the store where it was used; perhaps even the search terms typed to find it.
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