I belong to several consumer behavior-tracking panels.

There is an application installed on my computer that prompts us to tell it who logs on each time, that tracks our online usage.

I have a scanner in my house, and we record all our purchases.

Why??

Do I do it for the rewards I earn, or the entries into their big sweepstakes?

Hardly.

I do it as a Christian witness. And a whole foods witness. And a simple living witness.

You get the idea.

Everyone has heard that we can “vote with our pocketbook,” and I am a huge proponent of this. Surely the catchup industry will catch on if enough people only buy the ones with no High Fructose Corn Syrup.

But this is a chance for my “vote” to carry even more weight.

These consumer panels (formerly Neilsen, the name more folks recognize) are one of the main ways the industry measures consumer behavior and opinion.

So I was excited to have the opportunity to “tell” the powers that be that we don’t buy disposable everything, that we don’t buy products with High Fructose Corn Syrup in them, that we don’t bankrupt ourselves buying a mass of consumer goods in November and December – and for that matter that we did not buy anything on “Black Friday.”

Furthermore, I’m excited to have someone tracking my Internet usage. While they will see more time on Facebook than I’m exactly “proud of”, they will also notice that there is not an awful lot of online shopping, and no visits to the entertainment sites, “gossip” news sites, racy clothing stores, bootleg downloads, or crude humor sites.

I certainly have nothing to hide, so I’m grabbing hold of this opportunity to let the Light shine!

If you’re interested, you can sign up at NCP Online, and be placed in a pool from which future panelists are randomly drawn.

(The image is from InterVangelist, a website I know nothing about).

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