Female shoppers have "pregnancy scores"

Interesting article on mining data from records of shopping.

I used to work in the retail industry and know that such stuff happens. Data from shoppers' cards is sold to marketing agencies; the stores make quite a bit from this. I don't doubt that credit card companies probably collate what is charged to plastic and then turns around and sells it.

Given my age and shopping patterns, I'm quite sure that my pregnancy score is a disappointing zero to marketers, but I wonder what other kind of conclusion is extrapolated by my purchases.

The hyperlink in the article doesn't work. Go here

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As Pole’s computers crawled through the data, he was able to identify about 25 products that, when analyzed together, allowed him to assign each shopper a “pregnancy prediction” score. More important, he could also estimate her due date to within a small window, so Target could send coupons timed to very specific stages of her pregnancy.

Target may have been too successful in this goal; as Duhigg writes, one teenage customer in Minneapolis was "outed" as being pregnant by a coupon mailer sent to her house. Her father was justifiably upset to see Target offering his underage daughter discounts on diapers and cribs, though he was perhaps more upset when he discovered Target knew more about his daughter's personal life than he did.

Cue the "sad trumpet" wah-wah-wah-waaaahh.

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"[GFG's pregnancy is] kind of like at the stables where that one dumb, ugly-ass mare broke out of her corral one day and got herself screwed by the equally fugly colt that was due to be gelded the same afternoon."- Shiny

This is why gift cards and cash are wonderful things. I think having my purchases tracked in that way is more than creepy.

That is beyond creepy. So is target the big brother now?

Yeeehaw! I'd like to see how low my score is; sumfin' like -3000!!!

My shopping habits scare most potential targetting groups. But-I don't fret over companies using it for marketing. I am more concerned such lists can be accessed by scam artists.