Reply #8: The basic reason? Inventory control

[mcscajun]

Our prescription bottles won't be tagged...the bottles the pharmacist receives will be.

Wal-Mart is ordering all of its vendors to add RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification tags) to all products. And this will spread to many, many businesses, to control inventory, just-in-time delivery, reduce 'shrinkage' ( a cute little corporo-fascist term for employee theft ), etc.

The broadcast/receiving range of an RFID tag is very, very limited.

For more info: http://www.rfidjournal.com/

There are privacy issues, though:

http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/169