
How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did - antoncohen
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/
======
SeoxyS
For those who want real journalism, here is the original story:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-
habits.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-
habits.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all)

It's much better than Forbes' click-bait re-packaging of it, by the way.

~~~
blahedo
And 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
How 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.

------
subpixel
A 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
It makes me hold my nose too, but I think in twenty years this "rewrapping"
method will be a staple in J-school textbooks.

~~~
unreal37
In 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.

------
SquareWheel
Maybe 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.

~~~
sliverstorm
Not 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.

~~~
a_a_r_o_n
Kids get pregnant even when the parents are very involved. The reproductive
imperative will be served, like water seeking its own level.

------
ben1040
I 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.

~~~
brigade
Amazon'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...

~~~
wmf
Check out <http://www.amazon.com/gp/history/> and
<https://www.amazon.com/gp/yourstore/iyr> where you can delete stuff that
Amazon knows; this may fix recommendation problems.

~~~
jerhewet
Thanks for both of those links -- and for scaring the crap out of me when I
clicked the second one and got to the bottom of the page.

"1 - 15 of 534"

Five hundred and thirty-four purchases. Like having a cattle prod jammed into
the back of my head.

------
wallflower
And 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>

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.

~~~
Someone
The 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)

------
mdonahoe
NYTimes article that this one is referencing:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-
habits.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-
habits.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp)

~~~
nswanberg
And the corresponding HN discussion:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598558>

------
pregnant_user
I'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.

~~~
jrockway
_I'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
If purchases are public, where can I get the data so I can build my map of the
economy?

~~~
unreal37
You 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.

~~~
nostrademons
Data that can be had for a price, but not by anybody, is usually called
"proprietary", not "public".

------
jedberg
My 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.

~~~
mindslight
It'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
This is why they send coupons in the post to the card owner.

------
drfishstiks
In 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
Just wait until an adult dies. You get tons of mail in their name. Some of it
even tries to sell them life insurance.

~~~
froo
Yeah, 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.

------
kinkora
_"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.

------
joezydeco
So 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.

------
pash
An 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_Protec...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childrens_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act)

~~~
chrisbolt
COPPA applies to children under 13 years of age, not minors who are under 18
years of age.

~~~
pash
You'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...](https://www.privacyassociation.org/publications/subcommittee_hosts_proposed_coppa_changes_debate)

~~~
unimpressive
COPPA 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
No, 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.

~~~
unimpressive
That point makes more sense. Yes, I think that in the future privacy laws that
try to differentiate between the "Digital world" and "Reality" will find the
lines too blurry to draw. Were already there and were not even close to the
mountains peak.

------
jdowner
I'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.

------
shiven
O 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.

------
foodmonster
Reading 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.

------
devs1010
this 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
If 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.

~~~
pacala
It is not benign, now or ever. It is the ultimate discrimination tool,
targeted on our private actions and not on broad categories like "petit-
bourgeoise".

Yeah, it's all fun and games if shops do it and they apply it to baby powder
coupons. But the invasion of privacy and the private dossiers Target or Visa
or Facebook are building on every one of us can be used in other contexts.

Is this person likely to engage in extreme sports? Hike his health insurance
quota 5x because he is a "risk" to profits.

Does this job applicant fit a union sympathiser profile? Deny him the job, on
the "pure" economic reason that he is a risk to our bottom line profits.

I'd much rather ensure that this kind of data collection and targeting is
illegal across the board. I'm ready to sacrifice the coupon industry, thank
you very much.

~~~
etha
What is wrong with those scenarios? It sounds like you are proposing that
instead of using this information, people should ignore it and make bad
decisions.

~~~
devs1010
They shouldn't be allowed to use it. Who really wants to live in a 'fishbowl'
world where every corporate entity and government organization can have full
access to every minute detail of your life. It opens the door for rampant
discrimination

------
uptown
I 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.

------
antoncohen
To 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?

------
benackles
This 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> "Please submit the original
source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit
the latter."

------
tzs
The 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?

------
rcthompson
Is 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?

------
lonnierenda
This 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
If 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.

------
jrockway
Why does a high school kid have a credit card? Without that unique identifier,
they can't datamine.

~~~
mcpherrinm
Teenagers 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.

~~~
devs1010
In 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
Isn't it possible to use a 'family' card---that is your parents credit line
but the card has your name on it?

~~~
devs1010
yes, 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
But that _would_ solve the issue of tracking issue by giving her a personal
card to use?

------
tobinfricke
I 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.

------
mathattack
It'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
Sure, 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
Fair 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.

------
zephyrfalcon
In cases like these, parents are usually the last to find out...

------
elemenohpee
>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
People 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.

------
ck2
Creepy 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)

------
a_a_r_o_n
For pregnancy and other medical discoveries, I wonder if a case could be made
for HIPPA violations.

------
CPlatypus
I just wonder which data-mining-software company paid Forbes to copy this from
NYT.

