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You may be thinking about this article about how Target knew that a woman was pregnant before her family knew: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598558 http

You may be thinking about this article about how Target knew that a woman was pregnant before her family knew: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598558 I wish we had an update on what the situation looks like today.

measurablefunc 10mo ago
They have even better psychometric profiles on everyone now than they did previously. This is why Zuckerberg can confidently tell people during an interview that he knows they want at least 15 friends¹ & he is going to deliver those friends to them w/ his data centers. ¹https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-mark-zuckerberg-thinks-you-need-15-friendsand-santos-lalleman-81urf https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-mark-zuckerberg-thinks-yo...
- themafia 10mo ago
  I would guess that purely observational psychometrics completely fail to predict how people will respond when challenged or stressed. I think they're trading on fools gold.
  - degamad 10mo ago
    Observational psychometrics over a long enough timeframe (e.g. social media profile lifetimes) probably include periods of challenge or stress, which may help the predictive behaviour.
heavyset_go 10mo ago
Go over to friend's place and watch the ads they get, you'll get a good idea of what kind of health concerns or illnesses they may have. So far, in situations where it wouldn't be rude to ask, I've been able to determine with pretty good accuracy that at least someone in the household has the advertised health concerns. You can also get an idea of their financial situation, given what buckets advertisers put them in and what they're advertised, as well. Similarly, advertisers know when you're at friend's location, or elsewhere, and may show ads tailored to your profile.
- WalterBright 10mo ago
  You could have some fun by looking up symptoms of all kinds of diseases, so the profile of you will be filled with errors.
  - brewtide 10mo ago
    It's more fun to do this wild stuff when using someone else's wifi so it's also associated with their network for later savoring.
  - heavyset_go 10mo ago
    If you've been to a doctor's office, clinic or hospital lately, you've likely signed away the right for them to share your information with their partners during your initial intake.
    - WalterBright 10mo ago
      My point was you cannot stop people from collecting data about you. But you can fill it with nonsense.
- ahartman00 10mo ago
  I wouldnt jump to conclusions too fast. I'm a very thin person, but I get a lot of ads for GLP-1. My doctors have always said I need to gain weight, so I can assure you I'm not searching for weight loss solutions. Nor am I diabetic.
  - gruez 10mo ago
    To be fair, for GLP-1 drugs I see enough of them in untargeted ads (eg. billboards) that I just assume they're carpetbombing everyone rather than doing precise targeting.
  - heavyset_go 10mo ago
    GLP-1 drugs are such money makers that it's worth advertising them so that you 1) know they exist 2) might recommend them 3) might take them yourself at some point. A month's supply of Wegovy/etc costs nearly $2k. Same thing with the monoclonal antibody drugs, you can be looking at tens of thousands of dollars per month for a single patient. You also see this with luxury brands, that advertise to segments that cannot afford their products, in order to build image of luxury and prestige. That said, I asked my friends/family if they had <not embarrassing or too intrusive> condition, and more often than not, someone in the household had it.
gruez 10mo ago
>You may be thinking about this article about how Target knew that a woman was pregnant before her family knew: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598558 "before her family knew" is a pretty low bar to clear, especially if the daughter was actively trying to hide the pregnancy (eg. by wearing baggy clothing). Moreover if we're taking the example of this specific story, where the women presumably knew she was pregnant (as opposed to the more sensational story of "Target figured out a women was pregnant before she even knew!!1!" that also makes the rounds), it's not hard to imagine how Target might be in a better position to infer her pregnancy without being galaxy brained or creepy. Take the examples given in the article: >Take a fictional Target shopper named Jenny Ward, who is 23, lives in Atlanta and in March bought cocoa-butter lotion, a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag, zinc and magnesium supplements and a bright blue rug.
- majormajor 10mo ago
  Galaxy-brained, no; creepy, yes.
  - gruez 10mo ago
    It's creepy for companies to keep track of what you buy? How do you think your Amazon order history works?
    - dragonwriter 10mo ago
      To track it? Maybe, maybe not, depends on what the conpany is, how the purchases are made, etc. To analyze it to infer personal information? Starting to be creepy, even in the cases where tracking it isn’t. And then use the inferred information for marketing explicitly and overtly around the inference? Definitely getting creepier.
- pests 10mo ago
  I think that is still creepy, but that example just seems horrible? Oh no, a woman bought lotion, a purse, and a rug. Must be pregnant!
hamdingers 10mo ago
> I wish we had an update on what the situation looks like today. My wife and I spent 3 years in fertility treatments, which involves a lot of online activity similar to that of someone newly pregnant (buying pregnancy tests, researching symptoms, etc). We were constantly bombarded with pregnancy related advertising, it really ramped up after the first year. Tons of "congratulations" cards, coupon books, "new mom" magazines, up to and including unsolicited shipments of formula and branded blankets. So to answer your question, it's still happening, and it's disgusting. I strongly suspect Carrot Fertility sold our information because the peak of it all happened a couple months after I gained access to them through my employer. (We did eventually succeed, our baby is nearing 6 months)
majormajor 10mo ago
The miss rate is still wildly high based on the ads in my instagram feeds. But the really-good hits are probably tough to notice. They won't stand out as "boy this is a stupid ad" and even if I just scroll past a well-targeted ad, it's probably doing its job of making that company/product a bit closer to the top of mind...
- bluGill 10mo ago
  Some of the miss is intentional. they don't want you to know what they know so they give some random things you don't want to throw you off
skybrian 10mo ago
It’s a meme that will never die, but there’s no proof it ever happened: > This story doesn’t even show that Target tried to figure out whether the girl was pregnant. It just shows that she received a flyer that contained some maternity items and her weird dad freaked out and wanted to talk to the manager. There’s no way to know whether the flyer arrived as a result of some complex targeting algorithm that correctly deduced that the girl was pregnant because she bought a bunch of lotion, or whether they just happened to be having a sale on diapers that week and sent a flyer about it to all their customers. https://medium.com/@colin.fraser/target-didnt-figure-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did-a6be13b973a5 https://medium.com/@colin.fraser/target-didnt-figure-out-a-t...
dragontamer 10mo ago
I continuously get Spanish advertisements despite being unable to speak Spanish. (The only foreign language media I visit on YouTube is Anime/Japanese and Germans stuff). There are surely large numbers of dumb cases of being mispredicted out there in.

measurablefunc 10mo ago

They have even better psychometric profiles on everyone now than they did previously. This is why Zuckerberg can confidently tell people during an interview that he knows they want at least 15 friends¹ & he is going to deliver those friends to them w/ his data centers. ¹https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-mark-zuckerberg-thinks-you-need-15-friendsand-santos-lalleman-81urf https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-mark-zuckerberg-thinks-yo...

themafia 10mo ago
I would guess that purely observational psychometrics completely fail to predict how people will respond when challenged or stressed. I think they're trading on fools gold.
- degamad 10mo ago
  Observational psychometrics over a long enough timeframe (e.g. social media profile lifetimes) probably include periods of challenge or stress, which may help the predictive behaviour.

heavyset_go 10mo ago

Go over to friend's place and watch the ads they get, you'll get a good idea of what kind of health concerns or illnesses they may have. So far, in situations where it wouldn't be rude to ask, I've been able to determine with pretty good accuracy that at least someone in the household has the advertised health concerns. You can also get an idea of their financial situation, given what buckets advertisers put them in and what they're advertised, as well. Similarly, advertisers know when you're at friend's location, or elsewhere, and may show ads tailored to your profile.

WalterBright 10mo ago
You could have some fun by looking up symptoms of all kinds of diseases, so the profile of you will be filled with errors.
- brewtide 10mo ago
  It's more fun to do this wild stuff when using someone else's wifi so it's also associated with their network for later savoring.
- heavyset_go 10mo ago
  If you've been to a doctor's office, clinic or hospital lately, you've likely signed away the right for them to share your information with their partners during your initial intake.
  - WalterBright 10mo ago
    My point was you cannot stop people from collecting data about you. But you can fill it with nonsense.
ahartman00 10mo ago
I wouldnt jump to conclusions too fast. I'm a very thin person, but I get a lot of ads for GLP-1. My doctors have always said I need to gain weight, so I can assure you I'm not searching for weight loss solutions. Nor am I diabetic.
- gruez 10mo ago
  To be fair, for GLP-1 drugs I see enough of them in untargeted ads (eg. billboards) that I just assume they're carpetbombing everyone rather than doing precise targeting.
- heavyset_go 10mo ago
  GLP-1 drugs are such money makers that it's worth advertising them so that you 1) know they exist 2) might recommend them 3) might take them yourself at some point. A month's supply of Wegovy/etc costs nearly $2k. Same thing with the monoclonal antibody drugs, you can be looking at tens of thousands of dollars per month for a single patient. You also see this with luxury brands, that advertise to segments that cannot afford their products, in order to build image of luxury and prestige. That said, I asked my friends/family if they had <not embarrassing or too intrusive> condition, and more often than not, someone in the household had it.

gruez 10mo ago

>You may be thinking about this article about how Target knew that a woman was pregnant before her family knew: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598558 "before her family knew" is a pretty low bar to clear, especially if the daughter was actively trying to hide the pregnancy (eg. by wearing baggy clothing). Moreover if we're taking the example of this specific story, where the women presumably knew she was pregnant (as opposed to the more sensational story of "Target figured out a women was pregnant before she even knew!!1!" that also makes the rounds), it's not hard to imagine how Target might be in a better position to infer her pregnancy without being galaxy brained or creepy. Take the examples given in the article: >Take a fictional Target shopper named Jenny Ward, who is 23, lives in Atlanta and in March bought cocoa-butter lotion, a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag, zinc and magnesium supplements and a bright blue rug.

majormajor 10mo ago
Galaxy-brained, no; creepy, yes.
- gruez 10mo ago
  It's creepy for companies to keep track of what you buy? How do you think your Amazon order history works?
  - dragonwriter 10mo ago
    To track it? Maybe, maybe not, depends on what the conpany is, how the purchases are made, etc. To analyze it to infer personal information? Starting to be creepy, even in the cases where tracking it isn’t. And then use the inferred information for marketing explicitly and overtly around the inference? Definitely getting creepier.
pests 10mo ago
I think that is still creepy, but that example just seems horrible? Oh no, a woman bought lotion, a purse, and a rug. Must be pregnant!

hamdingers 10mo ago

> I wish we had an update on what the situation looks like today. My wife and I spent 3 years in fertility treatments, which involves a lot of online activity similar to that of someone newly pregnant (buying pregnancy tests, researching symptoms, etc). We were constantly bombarded with pregnancy related advertising, it really ramped up after the first year. Tons of "congratulations" cards, coupon books, "new mom" magazines, up to and including unsolicited shipments of formula and branded blankets. So to answer your question, it's still happening, and it's disgusting. I strongly suspect Carrot Fertility sold our information because the peak of it all happened a couple months after I gained access to them through my employer. (We did eventually succeed, our baby is nearing 6 months)

majormajor 10mo ago

The miss rate is still wildly high based on the ads in my instagram feeds. But the really-good hits are probably tough to notice. They won't stand out as "boy this is a stupid ad" and even if I just scroll past a well-targeted ad, it's probably doing its job of making that company/product a bit closer to the top of mind...

bluGill 10mo ago
Some of the miss is intentional. they don't want you to know what they know so they give some random things you don't want to throw you off

skybrian 10mo ago

It’s a meme that will never die, but there’s no proof it ever happened: > This story doesn’t even show that Target tried to figure out whether the girl was pregnant. It just shows that she received a flyer that contained some maternity items and her weird dad freaked out and wanted to talk to the manager. There’s no way to know whether the flyer arrived as a result of some complex targeting algorithm that correctly deduced that the girl was pregnant because she bought a bunch of lotion, or whether they just happened to be having a sale on diapers that week and sent a flyer about it to all their customers. https://medium.com/@colin.fraser/target-didnt-figure-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did-a6be13b973a5 https://medium.com/@colin.fraser/target-didnt-figure-out-a-t...

dragontamer 10mo ago

I continuously get Spanish advertisements despite being unable to speak Spanish. (The only foreign language media I visit on YouTube is Anime/Japanese and Germans stuff). There are surely large numbers of dumb cases of being mispredicted out there in.