Charlie Stross being male, and the Target story being massively advertised, I’m assuming that was something he initially wanted to point at.
Purchase history is by far the worst offender in that aspect: you can predict diabetes, risky behaviour, alcoholism, pregnancy, emotional state (and marriage stability), intention to move (via DIY equipment), even religion and ethnicity, that carry a similar moral and legal burden in Europe.
As far as I can read, all legal documents mention: asking, collecting, processing explicit data. None seem to cover the case of a high factor between “has bough unscented skin cream” and “Recommend cribs, nappies and milk bottles”.
What was interesting in the NYT piece about Target was how even with that knowledge, being too explicit was considered horrible and an invasive practice. Based on anecdotal reaction to ‘People who bought that’ from Amazon from more than a decade ago (and the general sucky obviousity of most of their suggestion) I’m assuming that a lot of the crunchy cases (say: blue books, box wine, dark chocolate and dildos) are censored to avoid public scandal, and a corresponding regulation.
Based on experts’ mobility and the strength of statistical trends in general, I guess the Target Data scientist who was fired after the NYT was not guilty of spelling the beans, or revealing that Hadoop was the right choice (duh) to competitors like WalMart and CostCo, but letting the public know.
Purchase history is by far the worst offender in that aspect: you can predict diabetes, risky behaviour, alcoholism, pregnancy, emotional state (and marriage stability), intention to move (via DIY equipment), even religion and ethnicity, that carry a similar moral and legal burden in Europe.
As far as I can read, all legal documents mention: asking, collecting, processing explicit data. None seem to cover the case of a high factor between “has bough unscented skin cream” and “Recommend cribs, nappies and milk bottles”.
What was interesting in the NYT piece about Target was how even with that knowledge, being too explicit was considered horrible and an invasive practice. Based on anecdotal reaction to ‘People who bought that’ from Amazon from more than a decade ago (and the general sucky obviousity of most of their suggestion) I’m assuming that a lot of the crunchy cases (say: blue books, box wine, dark chocolate and dildos) are censored to avoid public scandal, and a corresponding regulation.
Based on experts’ mobility and the strength of statistical trends in general, I guess the Target Data scientist who was fired after the NYT was not guilty of spelling the beans, or revealing that Hadoop was the right choice (duh) to competitors like WalMart and CostCo, but letting the public know.