[WirelessGigabit]

I know there is the famous Target case where Target sent pregnancy related ads to the living-at-her-parents daughter. That's how the dad found out.

I remember a podcast about this. Maybe Reply All. But I cannot find it anymore.

[brians]

It later turned out Target sent some of those ads to all families, blindly—it wasn’t causally related to the daughter’s pregnancy. Whoops.

But this way makes a better story.

[MrJohz]

Do you have a source for that? I've heard that claim before, and I can completely believe it, but I've never seen any real evidence for either side of the story, just a lot of guesses about how the system might have worked.

[fortran77]

Well, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

See:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits....

and

https://www.kdnuggets.com/2014/05/target-predict-teen-pregna...

[pweezy]

I learned about this from the audiobook version of The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Maybe that is what you're thinking of?

[WirelessGigabit]

Thank you so much! I owe you a <insert-drink-of-your-choice>!

[forrestthewoods]

How Companies Learn Your Secrets (2012)

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits....