Well that is definitely odd. But kind of hilarious too, how they figured out she was pregnant and her dad didn't know.
This, my friends, is why I make most of my purchases in cash.
Here's the article Colbert is reading from
.
edited 29th Feb '12 2:20:24 PM by Sandbylur
Any chance of getting link to video that isn't restricted outside US of a god damn A?
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Plastic is spaztic. Cash is King. Can't track the good ol dollar bills in my pocket.
edited 29th Feb '12 4:15:03 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
NOT THE BEES
OMG NO NOSECONES
^ Only works if you bother to input the serial numbers, and it's not likely that the store notes who you are when you pay with cash, and notes the serial numbers after the fact.
Plastic is tracked no matter what.
I'd rather use cash, but since I'm married, it tends to be snagged out of my wallet by someone all the time... ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
My indentity is not attached to cash purchases unlike with plastic.
Who watches the watchmen?
OMG NO NOSECONES
There's also pre-paid cards, but those are a mixed bag...
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.
Fuzzy Orange Doomsayer
Apparently, Scorecard Research is one of the bigger data trackers. Their site has an opt-out, though I'm not sure whether it actually does anything.
edited 29th Feb '12 8:38:50 PM by feotakahari
That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I bet it adds you to the "has something to hide" list.
@OP- the specific thing you complained about- retailers using your credit card purchases to target on-line ads to your IP- should be impossible. In the article that Cobert was using, Target only knows someone's snail mail address if that customer tells them, usually by filling out an application for one of their customer rewards programs. When you do that, you are exchanging your privacy for access to discounts. But there is a privacy law in place in the US. It's called the Fair Credit Reporting Act and basically says the following:
"...Federal financial privacy laws (Regulation P) prohibit credit card issuers from sharing your personal and payment information with third parties not affiliated with the issuer..."
In other words, the credit card issuer cant share your info with any company that isn't part of the same ownership structure, with certain exceptions, most of which you can choose to opt out of.
The bottom line is, AFAIKT, your purchase information is being tracked, but by the credit card issuer, not the retailer you bought something from, unless you have given away your identity somehow.
You also have rights regarding what retailers are allowed to ask you as a customer. More info and advice here.
http://flowingdata.com/2012/02/27/stephen-colbert-on-target-and-predictive-analytics/
After watching this clip, I started noticing that Target has done a similar thing for me. I buy candy there fairly often, so now all of the Target adds that google puts up involve things of a gastronomical nature - I get adds for tums and such. The creepy part, though, is that in order to target (heh) these adds at me over the internet, they somehow managed to find my IP address based off of my credit card alone.
I feel violated, haha.
Since mentioning the word "target" will likely cause the google ad brain to put up target related advertisements, see for yourself if Target's algorithm knows more about you than you'd expect. Creepy, right?