theNetherlands

Apparently merchants are no longer required to give customers a paper receipt. A cafe with a no-cash sign also had no menus. Normally I would move along but they had something unique that I wanted to try.

They had wifi without a captive portal, so I was able to get online. But the menu would not render in my browser (“Privacy Browser”). No idea what the malfunction was but I just got a black screen when visiting the menu. So the staff had a phone they let me use (which is important because who’s to say that all customers even carry a smartphone).

I was able to place an order. I’m not sure how they normally work out which order goes to what table because there was no step of identifying my table in the UI. Perhaps they guess based on timing of my entrance. After placing an order, I tapped a pay afterwards option. And I was able to pay at the register. But the register had no printer. No way of producing receipts.

me: I would like a receipt please
staff: that will be in gmail¹
me: what email? I was never asked for an email address.

Staff discusses among themselves how to add an email address to an order that came from one of their phones. Turns out to be impossible (at least as far as they knew).

¹ yes they really said “gmail” not email, which made me realise /their/ address is gmail, and thus the receipt would be transmitted with Google in the loop.

So even if they could work out a way to associate my email address to the order, the receipt would come from Google. Of course the first problem is assuming customers even have an email account and willingness to share it. The assumption that breaks down in my case is the assumption that I am okay with Google tracking my offline commerce.

GAFAM is investing fortunes in buying offline sales data and I oppose willfully feeding these tech giants. I will not give an email address to a gmail user.

I was denied a receipt because of a competency issue, but had competency not been an issue I would have still been denied a receipt because of my ethical stance. Is this really legal?² What if it had been a business meal subject to a tax deduction? The taxman wants receipts.

After I left, it later occurred to me to ask for a hand-written receipt on a napkin or whatever they can come up with. I will ask for that next time.

² My question of legality is strictly in terms of denying customers a printed receipt. I’m sure it’s illegal from a GDPR standpoint (data minimisation -- my email address is not necessary for performance of the contract).