Take another look at that title and read the article…
How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did
How do you suppose this happened? No, not the pregnancy. How did Target know?
This is a result of simple data analysis of purchases by individual shoppers. It reminds me of a college database class from 25 years ago. The professor was trying to help us understand that unimportant bits of information stored in one database can be matched with unimportant bits of information from other databases, resulting in some important conclusions.
Every time we use a credit card at a store, or get the affinity shopper discount, the retailer collects information about our individual habits. By pooling what is known from many, the trends for an individual might be inferred. That is what is described in the article.
I’m not trying to spread fear. We all just need to be aware of what is happening and how it affects our privacy.
Did you catch that bit about how coupons can reveal what the retailer knows about you? How about the part where they try to mask their knowledge by including mis-information in the sets of coupons?
Will this affect how you shop?
- Dan
