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Comment by Symmetry | Hacker News Reader

I'd sort of expect older people to be _less_ uncomfortable about it. Back in the day you bought more things from from smaller stores with proprietors who might recognize you and remember what you purchased last time. I'm pretty sure I've old movies where someone walks into a store and the guy behind the counter says something like "Hi Bob, we've got a new order in of those Foozits you like!" and Bob is embarrassed because he's with someone who he didn't want to know that he bought Foozits. I'm not very sensitive to privacy issues for a HN reader, but I know that my parents positively want to have personal relationships with the entities they buy things from.

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I see what you're saying - in fact, I just switched my usual hardware store from a big Home Depot to a local Home Hardware (a somewhat smaller, Canadian chain), partly because of that personal relationship you're alluding to.

I think, though, that the relationship to Target isn't like that, because while they know an awful lot about you personally, you don't know them personally at all - they're just a corporate face, not a familiar one behind the counter.

In fact, you've just helped me figure out a bit more specifically what I found vaguely unsettling about it.

With the local sole proprietor knowing your intimate details, you as the customer know his. You probably go to the same, if not similar church. You also have neighbors who you both have in common. You also know about his life, his children, his wife.

In the end, he's another person (not 'person' like target) who lives in your community.

Who, perhaps, is Target? Or Wal-mart?

In this case, the difference is if Foozits were something you used to stop your whatzit from itching, the proprietor probably wouldn't mention that out loud in the company of others. Target, on the other hand, is fine sending you an ad for it - and I suspect when the day comes that they can announce that to you when you walk in the store, they'll use all the tact and grace they apparently used in divining a girl was pregnant without also divining her age.

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