I’ve already written about how annoying it is to be bombarded with advertisements while buying gas. Now they’ve gone even further. I went to buy gas the other day and got this great screen demanding my zip code.

Find missing image "I Just Want My Gas! flickr.com/3097/2315643138_4519e68bb2_m.

Now, this is lame for so many reasons. First, the implementation is so poor that it accepted six zeros as a valid zip code. Six zeroes. Yeah. Secondly, this is a real cheat since you don’t know if the zip code is for credit authorization or marketing purposes. Since it took six zeroes I assume it’s for marketing purposes.

Companies need to start respecting our privacy at least the slightest, tiniest bit. We need to vote with our dollars and avoid these scams, or mess them up with invalid data – like six zeroes.