The corporate world is mining your life for juicy, personal details. Should you be paranoid? Read and decide.
Whether or not you're pregnant.
Target keeps track of every customer's purchases, credit card number, name, email address, and other personal details you enter during a transaction. Its analytics department then tracks "pregnancy indicator" purchases (i.e., unscented lotion, vitamins, etc.), flags potentially pregnant customers, and sends them ads and coupons for pregnancy-related products.
Legend holds that an angry Minneapolis father accused Target of encouraging his teenage daughter to get pregnant after sending her coupons for baby clothing and cribs. He allegedly apologized after discovering that she was indeed pregnant.
Source: b4tea.com
How likely you are to miss your flight.
It turns out that ordering a vegetarian meal is the best predictor of arriving on time to the airport. Vegetarians aren't simply more punctual; the pattern-recognition startup theunworldlytravelers.com
Whether or not your car is a lemon.
By synthesizing data about used car buyers, post-purchase car breakdowns, and car color, Kaggle can predict how likely used cars are to cause problems.
Want to buy a car that lasts? An orange one is your best bet.
Source: backgroundbandit.com
What "personal products" you might like to buy with your Communion wafers.
Amazon uses an in-house mining platform to package data about its customers' browsing and purchase behavior. By segmenting customers by preference profile, Amazon can recommend products tailored to individuals' purchase and browsing histories. Marketers can also quickly determine where to place relevant ads as you browse.
But sometimes the pairings are a little odd, like lube with Communion wafers.
Source: queerty.com
