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While there are multiple steps and items that can be combined together in your example, it does reinforce why I make sure to use cash for some transactions. I really don't want my ad targeting profile to change to "likely has children" when I buy things for my nieces and nephews.

A few years back there was the case where Target was using mailed ads specific to the profile they'd built for the recipient, and a man went in angry about the pregnancy stuff being advertised to his daughter. He went into the store outraged. Turns out, she actually was pregnant and hadn't yet told her father.

Ever since then, I've been more conscious of my purchasing patterns. I'm sure there are still technological advancements to track cash transactions, but it at least makes it more difficult.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...

Thanks for the link. I always thought that story was urban legend.

If your photo has been associated with an other than cash transaction, pretty much game over. You will have to up your game and put on zebra makeup when out making cash purchases

I'll consider dressing in drag, bringing along masks, or buying a large number of Halloween costumes. Surely if enough people went to the store with a Donald Trump parody mask on they couldn't trace us all!

...though the anonymous mask would work just as well.

Not sure if you are shooting the messenger or riffing but start here [1]

[1] https://www.facefirst.com/

That is a very upsetting story. Thank you for taking the time to share it. It serves as a pertinent example of how cold and calculating advertising can be - especially with regards to intimate, personal life events.

Facebook still seems to misunderstand its role as a communications platform funded through adtech and data harvesting. And as a company with 2 billion+ customers ('users' in reality, as their customers are actually advertisers), they need to understand that they have an ethical role to play in using technology (yes, even communications technologies) and need to address their Orwellian bones.

IMO mass communications vehicles like Facebook and Twitter need to be regulated with a regime similar to a phone company. There needs to be a firewall between the communications and tooling portion of the business and advertising business.

The obligation to maximize shareholder value for companies like Facebook (or legacy AT&T doesn't align with the public interest). You also have companies controlled by small numbers of people with unusual world-views. (Remember when Twitter was bragging about sparking the arab spring?) You need distributed regulatory force to compel behavior, just like how many aspects of electrical rates are governed in the US by state commissions.

I largely agree; although I ‘fear’ that the regulation will take the form of the competition authorities rather than say, a communications authority (FCC in the USA [1], ACMA in Australia, relevant bodies in European nations). Why such a ‘fear’? Because it is the wrong way to regulate in my opinion and proves that the ‘horse’ has bolted.

I can’t remember the source but I recently read that Facechook has a PR team of 1,100 (WTF?!) and that even The Zuck (™ pending!) has a personal media team of 15-20 making him look like a Saint. Spoilers: outside of HN and many tech sites, it’s working - even in the light of Cambridge Analytica, et al.

The real issue stems from the fact that very few elected Politicians or Technocrats understand technology and its implications, OR, are too fearful to attack the FANGs as they are very powerful, OR are susceptible to soft propaganda efforts; otherwise known as lobbyists.

It’s clear to me at least that an unregulated Facebook is a potential danger in many parts of the world: USA elections, Myanmar, etc. It obviously has great utility too - hence its absolute success - but the days when Google, Apple, Facechook, et al, say they are not media companies are hopefully in the past.

[1] although not under the current FCC regime!

Thank you for sharing. And then people say GDPR is overreach. It is precisely to deal with these type of issues and the type of issue described in the OP that we don’t want. Time will tell if it works, but I have hope.

>I spoke to a couple of physician and nurse friends who are pretty confident that it was a combination of the ER admission, an imaging claim, and a drug that was prescribed and filled in the hospital that made it highly likely to an observer that she was pregnant -- but didn't provide enough detail to determine that she left the hospital not pregnant.

That would be a very serious breach of HIPAA.....and wow turns out I am wrong, after a quick google search, I'm now afraid you may be right- that they did not de-anonymize you but somehow botched a targeted anonymous profile. Absolutely bonkers.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-data-brokers-...

Physician data is not anonymized, so correlation is pretty easy.

With drugs, physicians are treated like sales representatives by the pharmaceutical companies, who get real-time data from the pharmacies about prescriptions as they are filled. They are assigned quotas based on demographics and "education" or other programs are targeted based on how they prescribe.

I was less successful in learning exactly what information was shared re: the medical treatment, but because my employer administers hospital coverage separately from physician billing, we believe that only hospital related claims were used. The folks who I spoke to theorized that if I used an HMO, the anesthesia would have lowered my wife's "score" for further marketing.

The hospital network is good at not answering questions and I've gotten very little from them over 3 years -- I'm now thinking about lobbying a state legislator(s) about it.

They also have information about the doctors that allows them to tailor the marketing message.

This might be a good place to start learning more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2517975/

You could conceivably sue all involved parties for libel from passing around lies about your wife's medical status. Probably easy to add in some HIPPA violations too. That's why the hospital isn't going to be forthcoming because they know they're on shaky ground.

Can you share details about who provided the actual list and how you went about obtaining the details of your profile?