May 21, 2025

You might remember a story from around 13 years ago about how Target could predict that one of its young teenage customers were pregnant. By tracking and analyzing what she bought, the retail giant found out about her pregnancy before her own father. Her purchases included certain vitamins and lotions that pregnant women typically buy, and Target's system flagged this behavior as indicative of pregnancy. Subsequently, the retail giant sent coupons for baby clothes, diapers, and cribs to capitalize on the teenager’s future child. When her father saw the coupons, he was furious. He thought they were encouraging his daughter to get pregnant. But alas, she was already pregnant, and after having confronted the store, her father apologized. This was a long time, and what interactions with different services (like the daughter’s purchases) can reveal has changed. Today, novel methods can derive insights of a different kind—insights that even the originator of the behavior was unaware of. These new methods raise uncomfortable questions about the right to privacy, integrity, and the commodification of personal data, but they also offer new opportunities for the betterment of society.