SNA and How Companies Know Your Secrets

In the U.S., almost every major retailer, from grocery chains to investment banks to the U.S. Postal Service, has a “predictive analytics” department devoted to understanding not just consumers’ shopping habits but also their personal habits. This may be intuitive but did you know the level of detail companies may know about you? For example companies like Target can buy data about your ethnicity, job history, the magazines you read, if you’ve ever declared bankruptcy or got divorced, as well as what kinds of topics you talk about online, whether you prefer certain brands of coffee, paper towels, cereal or applesauce, your political leanings, reading habits, charitable giving and the number of cars you own. Companies like Target use this information to identify consumers around life and behavior changing events such as a pregnancy. I was at once awed and creeped out by the Big Brother aspect. I was awed because this is a very efficient use of SNA to efficiently market to consumers. However, there is a "creep" factor and begs the question, what if I don't want Target or any other companies to know this much information about me? Can I opt out? What are primary reasons I want to opt out? Is there a shift where consumers will be ok or even want companies to know so much about them?

Read the full article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html
New York Times, "How Companies Know Your Secrets," Charles Duhigg, February 2012