Self-Check Lanes Phasing Out, Ending Grocery Privacy

Albertson's, a Southern and Western U.S. grocery chain, has had enough with self-checkout lanes. Albertson's is pulling its do-it-yourself lanes in about half of its 217 company-operated stores to make way for regular and express employee-operated lanes. (The 450 stores operated by SuperValu get to keep their U-check lanes for now.)

Christine Wilcox of Albertson's told WalletPop, "We're actually almost done with the entire process" of taking out self-checkout lanes from 100 stores; [the balance] either never had self-checkout or had it removed long ago."

By way of explanation, Wilcox told MSNBC.com and many other news outlets, "We just want the opportunity to talk to customers more." But lots of customers -- like me -- don't want to talk back, and I fear we're moving just one step closer to the erasure of privacy from grocery stores all together.