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# PII ROI
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/pii-roi/
- Published: 2026-05-30T13:49:48.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-30T13:49:48.000Z
- Description: “PII ROI” an observation of the transactional practice of exchanging personal data for merchant deals, and wondering at the true price of a deal. Written Saturday, May 30, poem 150 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: "Free ice cream - Deal!" by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Dry Humor, Generational, Poems, Short-form Musings, Bargain, Birthday, Consumer, Data, Deal, Decaf, Discarded, Drive, Forgotten, Ice Cream, Intel, Latte, May, Merchants, PII, Plastic, Profitable, Retailers, ROI, Saturday, Social Media, Soda, Summer, The Cloud, Work, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

She learned through peers and social media   
that birthdays are profitable.  
That by giving a bit of PII to retailers,   
she could convert free text fields into dollars.  
Birth dates into scoops of ice cream,   
bags of chips, buckets of soda.  
  
And she found this to be an epic bargain.  
So she added her name,   
her day of joining the planet,   
her postal zip to a dozen forms.  
  
Those bits and bytes   
of her identity whooshed off into the cloud   
— and unseen overlords,   
who to-date have proven   
so trustworthy of the consumer’s welfare.   
  
Later, in the afternoon,   
once all her incoming celebration emails   
had hit her account,   
she convinced her Dad   
to drive her around town,   
to cash in on her work.  
  
She collected mint chocolate chip   
and hibiscus limeade   
and hot tortilla chips   
and free guacamole.  
She grabbed a dollar off a decaf latte   
and 10% off plastic toys   
at the local big box store.  
  
And she felt victorious,   
glorious, smart and savvy.  
And I wonder,   
what did she trade away,   
with all her data?  
  
For the hard serve   
has been metabolized,  
the drink cup recycled,   
the chip bag discarded,   
the plastic toy forgotten.  
  
But her identity?  
That, however,   
will live on in others' hands forever.