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How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did
- mdonahoe 15y agoNYTimes article that this one is referencing: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h...
- nswanberg 15y agoAnd the corresponding HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598558 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598558
- jrockway 15y agoWhy does a high school kid have a credit card? Without that unique identifier, they can't datamine.
- ssmall 15y agoShe could have been using a debit card. I got one with my first bank account when I was 15.
- devs1010 15y agoyeah me too, you can get a debit card with a visa logo at pretty much any age as far as I can tell
- mcpherrinm 15y agoTeenagers probably have a bank account. If not a credit card, then it's likely a debit card from a bank. But really, why not have a credit card? If she's not building debt, I don't see a problem with having one.
- jrockway 15y agoI'm not disagreeing with having a credit card; I just didn't think anyone would give one to you if you were under 18.
- devs1010 15y agoIn the U.S. it is illegal to offer credit to anyone under the age of 18 as they cannot legally enter into contracts. It would be a huge liability for a credit card company as the contract for credit (and thus right to request repayment) would essentially never be valid, although presumably they could go after the person's legal guardians for payment.
- true_religion 15y agoIsn't it possible to use a 'family' card---that is your parents credit line but the card has your name on it?
- devs1010 15y agoyes, this is, however the underage person can't be held liable for charges, basically its the parent's card but they authorized the child to use it (its not supposed to count for the child's credit score either but they usually put it on anyways)
- kgermino 15y agoBut that would solve the issue of tracking issue by giving her a personal card to use?
- dangrossman 15y ago> In the U.S. it is illegal to offer credit to anyone under the age of 18 as they cannot legally enter into contracts Minors can legally enter into contracts. Those contracts are entirely binding on the non-minor party. The minor is the one that can repudiate the contract before the age of majority to void it, but otherwise, it's a perfectly valid contract. If the minor remains bound past the age of majority, the contract can no longer be voided, either. There are credit cards marketed directly to teens.
- joezydeco 15y agoSome parents co-sign for credit cards in their kids' names.
- heretohelp 15y agoI got my first credit (as in line of credit, not debit/bank card with VISA logo) card at the age of 16. More common than you think. On the other hand, I was living on my own at the time.
- DrStalker 15y agoIt might not have been a credit card; she may have used a debit card or a store loyalty card they could track her with.
- joezydeco 15y agoSo the Forbes article does little but paraphrase the NYT article, and then includes the typical array of Facebook and Twitter "Share This!" links at the bottom. Aren't they just contributing to the very thing they're trying to scare you about? Pick a side.
- devs1010 15y agothis is one of the reasons I've been finding myself paying with cash more and more. While this seems fairly benign at first glance its becoming rather disturbing how much data is being collected and analyzed about consumers. In some ways I'm for stricter privacy laws like those in the EU.
- antoncohen 15y agoIf it's benign now, do you see it becoming not benign? I'm fine with it, and I don't see it going in a direction that makes me uncomfortable. I knew Target and other stores were tracking me with my credit card, I noticed it specifically with Target too. At one retail chain I made my first purchase there with a debit card, almost immediately I started getting discount cards in the mail. I can't say for sure how they correlated me to my physical address, but I can guess. They were part of a larger company with other chains, one of which I purchased something from online, using the same debit card. People seem spooked out by Target using credit cards to track people, what about not using credit cards? Safeway uses Club Cards, and they to it totally in the open by giving people "Just for U" coupons on things they buy (I used two of them yesterday). I'm not at all bothered that Safeway gives me a coupon on the exact laundry detergent I always buy, I think it's pretty nice of them.
- devs1010 15y agoYes, I can see how it could become not benign. With the way the government has been going, I could see them wanting access to all this data and even start doing something like profiling people's buying habits.. oh, so you frequently buy packs of mini zip-lock bags (the kind they sell weed and pills in)... must be a drug dealer.. the fear is mainly that the government would become active in profiling people's buying habits, they are already trying to gain more power over online data and I can see them doing it for this too. I think this sort of data collection could use some more regulation (in the form of consumer protection). Personally, I prefer to limit info I give to companies, I rarely put real info on those in-store cards, etc
- antoncohen 15y ago
- SquareWheel 15y agoMaybe it's because I live on the internet and think there's 1024 meters in a kilometer, but I didn't find this surprising or worrisome in the least. I would expect all large stores to perform data-mining, that data is valuable.
- eridius 15y agoTook me a moment to realize what was wrong about "1024 meters in a kilometer". I think I need to go outside more.
- sliverstorm 15y agoNot to mention there seems to be an implicit value judgement here. All fathers are deeply connected with their children, and know their darkest secrets, all the time! The reality is plenty of parents are very uninvolved in their childrens' lives.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- a_a_r_o_n 15y agoKids get pregnant even when the parents are very involved. The reproductive imperative will be served, like water seeking its own level.
- pregnant_user 15y agoI'm really surprised Target thought this was a good idea. I'm 7 weeks pregnant, and keeping it quiet enough that I made a fake account just to post this. Most women don't tell anyone outside of close family until the first trimester has passed, largely due to the number of things that could go wrong. I'd find it creepy and invasive to get something physical in the mail with private medical information.
- bishnu 15y agoThis is what happens when male marketing execs target female customers (no pun intended).
- jrockway 15y agoI'd find it creepy and invasive to get something physical in the mail with private medical information. It's not private medical information. It's an analysis of your public actions. All the coupons say is that many people that bought the things you did are pregnant. It doesn't say that you are pregnant.
- nostrademons 15y agoIf purchases are public, where can I get the data so I can build my map of the economy?
- yummyfajitas 15y agoYou can get the data by hanging out in target and watching what people buy. On one occasion, some kid in a CVS gave me a high five after seeing me buying a mega-pack of condoms while carrying a bottle of whiskey. Did he violate my privacy?
- unreal37 15y agoYou have a pocket full of credit cards, debit cards, and loyalty point cards. Every air mile you get is paid for by someone selling your purchase history to another company for marketing purposes. It's not public for anyone to grab. You have to pay for access to the data. But if you can pay, you can get the data.
- ben1040 15y agoI think the creepy feeling comes in that you don't realize the merchant is profiling you. At least not until they tip their hand a little too much (like sending you an entire booklet of nothing but maternity stuff). You get a Safeway club card and you know full well that they're tracking you, because you hand them the card every shopping trip. Or you use Amazon or Netflix, where customers really want to be tracked -- the tracking and data mining are part of the draw, because they have such good suggestion engines. I had LASIK a few years back and bought dry eye drops from Target - a lot of them, over six months time. Then my eyes healed and I quit buying it. A month later I get a coupon generated by a Target cash register for Systane drops, the exact brand I used to buy. I guess they thought I started buying them at Walgreens instead? It was only when they gave me a coupon for a specific brand and product, that most of the population would likely not buy on a typical weekly shopping trip, that I realized all my purchases were being tracked and linked by my credit card number. All that time before then, their prediction engine was selecting coupons for completely unrelated products, and I was using the coupons not even thinking about it.
- maxerickson 15y agoThe register printed coupons I get have plenty enough digits on them to be individually tracked. I imagine they are, but I haven't tried to figure it out. Several uses do come to mind, tracking the campaign, linking credit cards, things like that.
- pbhjpbhj 15y agoIf you pay cash they can give a coupon to have a second go at adding purchases to your history, what's better is they're things you thought you'd kept off your history - it's cool in an evil overlord sort of way. I find that Tesco give coupons for whole cart discount at a purchase price of about 25% above our average spend. That's a good tactic too.
- brigade 15y agoAmazon's been annoying me lately because it somehow got convinced that I'm a 30 year old woman and won't stop showing me dresses and jewelry on the front page, neither of which I have ever bought. What can you even do when their core profile of you is completely off-base? Amazon at least lets you fine-tune a little bit, but not enough to say, "no you're completely wrong" short of starting over with a new account. Which is a lot harder with physical stores...
- mathattack 15y agoIt's hard to draw a line on where privacy gets crossed, but this seems like it. Hard to imagine that Target doesn't lose a customer for life when their pregnancy gets prematurely outed.
- brk 15y agoSure, but how many customers for life do they GAIN? That's how they are looking at it, as long as the net result is an increase in business, it's a good strategy. I'm not saying I am on one side or the other, but every 'targeted' campaign will have some fallout, you just have to make sure it's a small enough number.
- mathattack 15y agoFair point. Normally the downside is just a stamp when the coupon gets pitched. Here it's more. but it's still a cost benefit analysis like anything else.
- drfishstiks 15y agoIn some situations, this sort of thing isn't just creepy - it's incredibly fucked up. My mother gave birth a while ago, and sadly, the child only lived for two months. But for months after his death, we received a LOT of coupons - "20% off diapers for your bundle of joy," etc. It was a sensitive time, and checking the mail often led to tears. After reading this article, thinking back - Target ads. I specifically remember giant, full-paged ads for nothing but baby items from Target. edit for type, it's =/= isn't
- philwelch 15y agoJust wait until an adult dies. You get tons of mail in their name. Some of it even tries to sell them life insurance.
- froo 15y agoYeah, I've had this more or less happen to me. A telemarketer from the bank I used to be with called me on the day of my brother's funeral to try and sell me life insurance. Terribly bad timing as at the time I was waiting for the car to pick my mother and myself up to lay him to rest. I'd like to say I handled it well, but I didn't. I vaguely recall some hefty swearing on my part the next day as I closed my account with them.
- jedberg 15y agoMy friends and I used to do a Safeway card swap party once in a while to avoid exactly this. Everyone would throw their Safeway card into a pile and then randomly select one to keep. Not even we knew who's card we had.
- noahc 15y agoI moved into a rental house and we had a stack of these that we'd just throw on the counter and take them whenever. As far as I know each one had been used by at least 2 generations of renters before me. It must have been odd.."Wow, this vegan keeps buying the cheapest hot dogs ever..."
- natrius 15y agoThat's only effective if you shop with cash.
- ryanhuff 15y agoHow so? My loyalty card is not linked to my preferred form of payment (atm).
- bretthoerner 15y agoBecause as soon as you pay with a debit/credit card they don't even need a loyalty card to track your habits.
- mindslight 15y agoIt'd be even better to figure out the details of their targeting algorithms and swap cards intelligently. If it looks like you used to be a strong (brand/store) customer and then stopped, they'll give you worthwhile coupons.
- pbhjpbhj 15y agoThis is why they send coupons in the post to the card owner.
- jdowner 15y agoI'm surprised no-one has mentioned 'cryptonomicon' and detachment 2702 so far. Basically, Target are doing the same thing, i.e. planting information to mask statistically significant results.
- subpixel 15y agoA fie on on Forbes for slapping a click-baiting headline on another publication's professional reporting and hard work. It's one thing to tweet about it, but to reprint numerous chunks of the original article? Wrapped in your own ads? How is this journalistically sound?
- gregholmberg 15y agoIt makes me hold my nose too, but I think in twenty years this "rewrapping" method will be a staple in J-school textbooks.
- unreal37 15y agoIn 20 years? That's what the Internet is today. 90% of stories are based on an interesting article the author read, and rewrote as a blog entry.
- jaredmck 15y agoThere won't be J-school in twenty years if this continues.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- _delirium 15y agoIt made it into The Onion, which is close: http://www.theonion.com/articles/huffington-post-employee-sucked-into-aggregation-t,27244/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/huffington-post-employee-su...
- brown9-2 15y agoWhat Forbes did/does isn't journalism.
- nswanberg 15y agoForbes optimizes for pageviews like Target optimizes for sales. They even emphasized the most emotionally compelling part of the story. And comparing the HN votes and discussion for this post vs. the original New York Times version, they chose wisely. Perhaps Ian Ayres' book Super Crunchers would have been more widely read had it begun with the pregnancy angle.
- uptown 15y agoI think I finally understand the etymology of their company name. I'd be willing to bet that insurers are or will use people's buying activity as one input of insurance premiums. With someone's credit card activity they could ascertain massive amounts of information about their lifestyle. Everything from how late they stay out, to how early they get up, to what types of food they eat, and what activities like drinking and smoking they partake in. Heck, Mint could do that for most of its users.
- zephyrfalcon 15y agoIn cases like these, parents are usually the last to find out...
- pash 15y agoAn interesting aspect of this story that no one's mentioned yet is that collecting this sort of information about a minor is illegal under COPPA [0] when it happens online. It should have been apparent for some time now that customer/user tracking and the accompanying privacy issues apply offline as much as online, but our laws have not caught up. Legislation like COPPA that proscribes behavior/activities solely online will only become more obviously non-sensical as the line between online and offline activities continues to blur. 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childrens_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childrens_Online_Privacy_Protec...
- chrisbolt 15y agoCOPPA applies to children under 13 years of age, not minors who are under 18 years of age.
- pash 15y agoYou're right. (Though I will add that there has been recent discussion of raising COPPA's age limit. [0]) But regardless of the age of the girl who is the subject of this article, my general point still stands. 0. https://www.privacyassociation.org/publications/subcommittee_hosts_proposed_coppa_changes_debate https://www.privacyassociation.org/publications/subcommittee...
- unimpressive 15y agoCOPPA basically made it illegal for people under 13 to be on the Internet. (Not that they weren't anyway, but it's the precedent and expectation that counts.) Making this situation worse doesn't strike me as a particularly good idea. The "Minors aren't people." meme ranks somewhere at the top of my list of annoying beliefs.
- pash 15y agoNo, COPPA doesn't basically make it illegal for children under thirteen to be on the Internet. It doesn't restrict what children under thirteen can do in any way. COPPA restricts what websites can do–they can't collect certain information about users without asking whether they're over thirteen. Sure, you can make a case that we shouldn't burden the web with these sorts of rules. Or that we shouldn't have to differentiate between adults and young children. (You'll lose that argument.) That's not my point. My point is that legislation that differentiates between online and offline activities—and the information we collect about them—will become increasingly nonsensical as online and offline activities become less distinct. When COPPA was passed in 1998, Target wasn't data-mining customers' purchase histories. Only websites were doing that sort of thing (or so the story went). Fast forward to today and offline activities (what you buy at the grocery store, where and when you get on the bus) are now being tracked in the same way that online activities have been for the last decade. Whatever limits you believe should (or shouldn't) be placed on tracking these activities, it's apparent that customer/user privacy is no longer an "online" issue. There will be no "online" issues in the future because the distinction between online and offline is quickly disappearing.
- tzs 15y agoThe New York Times article this was taken from was submitted earlier to HN, but only shows up for me when I go directly to news.ycombinator.com. It does not show up the RSS feed on Google Reader. What determines what HN submissions show up in the RSS fed?
- wallflower 15y agoAnd then we have Wal-Mart... > "We were contacted about two years ago by somebody who runs a security company that had been asked in a request for proposals for ways they could link video footage with customers paying for their purchases," Albrecht said. "Wal-Mart would actually be able to view photos and video of customers paying, say, for a pack of gum. At the time, it struck me as unbelievably outlandish because of the amount of data storage required." http://cryptome.org/eyeball/walmart/walmart-birds.htm http://cryptome.org/eyeball/walmart/walmart-birds.htm In general, an isolated video is not interesting. It becomes more interesting and potentially scary once you have a digital, searchable, analyzable history of video customer transactions. Reduce leakage/theft: If a cashier has been already flagged and the customer matches up in the network of cashier's friends (Facebook?), possibly in conjunction with another theft deterrent system, be able for managers to watch in real time a potential leakage event (where they don't scan certain items). Hyper-targeted marketing: (New) wedding ring detected. Commence deluge of in-kind marketing partnerships with Home Depot, maybe even Crate & Barrel. Customer over the past three months has been showing signs of possible pregnancy relative to their baseline body mass index. Somehow, non creepily, market to them via 3rd party mailing lists who had no idea how you learned she was expecting or more subtly by changing the default landing homepage of walmart.com to reflect more future mother when her cookie is detected. Kids. If the kids seem hyperactive in the overhead view, email coupons for toys that appeal to ADD-type kids. Over the last year of transactions, customer's head has been exhibiting signs of male pattern baldness. Send them targeted coupons for hats to see if they think its something they need to cover up.
- alexqgb 15y ago"Robot Readable World" by Timo Arnall does a great job illustrating what's behind entirely plausible scenarios like these. http://www.elasticspace.com/2012/02/robot-readable-world http://www.elasticspace.com/2012/02/robot-readable-world
- Someone 15y agoThe most worrisome thing of this, to me, is that it may increase differences between groups in society. Imagine a refinement where a shop splits the 'just pregnant' group into a 'looking for abortion' and a 'looking forward to having a child' group. Sending them targeted adverts based on that prediction may/will make that prediction come true (and that is the 'accidental effect' case. Think of what a racist shopkeeper/data miner could do)
- kinkora 15y ago"We are very conservative about compliance with all privacy laws. But even if you’re following the law, you can do things where people get queasy.” That's what everyone should take out of this article. Even though doing something is technically legal, it doesn't mean you or your startup/company should be doing it. Always take into account what your customer base will feel.
- antoncohen 15y agoTo make this more HN-centric, here's a question: If you are a developer, and you feel uncomfortable with this sort a tracking, would you work for a company developing or maintaining software or infrastructure that does this sort of customer analysis? It seems to me that some of the most interesting companies to work for are doing data mining like this. I would guess a large percentage of Hadoop installs are doing analytics on customer data. Are you ethnically opposed to data mining?
- foodmonster 15y agoReading the linked NYTimes article, I found the most interesting component to be that Target's goal wasn't just trying to sell diapers, but rather trying to get customers to form buying habits. Pregnancy just happens to be a very vulnerable time for consumers to start new shopping routines, and that's why it received so much analytic focus. It's a travesty that Forbes glosses over this point. The data mining isn't too surprising, and a habit of shopping at Target is what keeps making them money long after the baby has been born.
- a_a_r_o_n 15y agoFor pregnancy and other medical discoveries, I wonder if a case could be made for HIPPA violations.
- rcthompson 15y agoIs it actually legal to track customers by their credit card numbers, or do anything with them other than use them to complete monetary transactions? Should it be?
- SeoxyS 15y agoFor those who want real journalism, here is the original story: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h... It's much better than Forbes' click-bait re-packaging of it, by the way.
- blahedo 15y agoAnd one of the most interesting parts isn't even mentioned in the Forbes article: on page 8, Duhigg has a great description of how he hacked his own brain to reprogram an unwanted routine. (Well, he probably wouldn't describe it that way.)
- pinchyfingers 15y agoHow Duhigg hacked his brain to reprogram an unwanted routine: 1. Identify the habit's reward. Ex: going to a cafeteria to eat a cookie could be to satisfy hunger, get a burst of energy, take a break from work, socialize, etc. 2. Identify the habit's cue. Ex: location, time, emotional state, other people or the immediately preceding action. 3. To shift the routine, replace the habit, but maintain the cue and reward. Ex: If you eat a cookie everyday around 3:30 as a way of taking a break to socialize, stay current with office gossip and talk to friends, then continue taking a break at 3:30, but instead of hitting the cafeteria, look around the newsroom for someone to talk to. This way, the benefits of the habit are being preserved (taking a break and socializing), but the unwanted aspects are being replaced. Of course, these examples are lifted directly from the article.
- bobds 15y agoThanks for the link, I especially loved the Febreze story.
- Dylan16807 15y agoAnd now I know why a supposedly barely scented spray leaves such a perfumed stink when I use enough to remove real odors.
- 15y ago
- tobinfricke 15y agoI wonder whether this anecdote (about the manager and the angry father) is actually true. If the manager did not actually know about the ad campaign, how did the anecdote make its way to the reporter? It sounds borderline "too juicy to be true". That one anecdote makes the story.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- theDaveB 15y agoHow was the teenage girl tracked, I would have thought at that age she was using cash. Also I presume her father opened her mail, if she opened it am sure she wouldn't have shown her father. Dave
- ck2 15y agoCreepy as hell. This is why I pay cash. They can keep their "redcard" for tracking everyone's data. (I also have a dozen amazon accounts for different stuff)
- shiven 15y agoO ye scared of the inevitable future ... Future generations will look back at these writings and smile gently at the past where people were afraid of such things as individually personalized targeted marketing, just as we smile back today at the ignorant masses afraid of steam locomotives, vaccines and the like, way back when.
- benackles 15y agoThis story, along with much of the content produced by Forbes are in violation of Hacker News Guidelines [1]. While these are simply guiding principles, they are an important measure of what is permitted within the community. [1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter."
- lonnierenda 15y agoThis will make a great class action suit against Target. After all, when did you give them permission to start tracking your purchases when you use a credit card? We worry about online privacy at Google or other companies this is worse. It is not as if you are using one of those cards at the grocery store where you agree to allow them to track your buying habits.
- joezydeco 15y agoIf it's not illegal, and you're on their private property, then I think there's nothing a lawsuit can do. Get the laws changed.
- elemenohpee 15y ago>So Target got sneakier about sending the coupons. I love that logic. Woah, our customers are getting creeped out by this. Guess we gotta creep harder.
- TeMPOraL 15y agoPeople get creeped out by more and more things nowdays. I don't want to taunt the "If you don't do anything wrong, you don't have anything to hide" phrase, but the truth is that privacy is an illusion; most privacy one can get comes from that literaly no one cares about this 'private stuff' of the individual - at least not enough to try and learn it. As the technology gets better, it's becoming increasingly difficult to lie, and to live a fake life. Every thing one does leaves a trace in the physical world, a trace that one can't remove. From air vibrations to people talking to behaviour patterns, the trace is there, and year after year we get better and better at amplifying those signals and extracting information. One can not lie and hope it will remain undiscovered forever. In a healthy society this would be a Good Thing.
- CPlatypus 15y agoI just wonder which data-mining-software company paid Forbes to copy this from NYT.