NPR reports on a Japanese-owned, Rhode Island–based cafe that is exchanging coffee for students’ personal data. While Shiru Cafe only serves coffee to university students and faculty, it only accepts money from faculty. Instead, students are asked to input their names, phone numbers, email addresses, majors, birthdates and other information. The cafe then provides coffee for free and is able to sell the data to corporate sponsors, who can then contact the students with digital advertisements and offers.
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