TARGET · PURCHASE HISTORY · PREDICTIVE PROFILING
Target's predictive marketing work became famous for inferring pregnancy from combinations of ordinary purchases.
Purchase history → statistical inference → sensitive marketing category
Reporting on Target's analytics described a pregnancy-prediction model based on patterns across ordinary purchases. The widely repeated anecdote about pregnancy-related coupons reaching a teenage shopper before her father knew she was pregnant comes through secondary reporting and should not be treated as equivalent to a regulator's complaint or court finding.
Why it matters: Privacy is not limited to facts you explicitly disclose. An institution can possess a consequential inference about you without you ever having stated the underlying fact.
This page preserves the anecdote and its caveats separately from the shorter Why Privacy Matters explainer. The goal is to keep the argument readable without hiding the receipts.