oh a creepy thing

[dragonlady7]

So on Saturday, after several months of desultory online shopping for a new bathroom rug, I finally went into a Target and bought one.

Within an hour, Target had emailed me to ask how my visit was.

How did they know it was me?
My phone location? (I did NOT consent to share that with them, but it is on, and I do frequently review places on Google Maps.)
My debit card? (I did use my own; I'm out of cash and since I no longer have a bank branch nearby, I can't so easily get more.)

Or some other way?

And why, oh why, do they think that I would find this email anything other than creepy and intrusive???

Comments

[j00j]

Almost certainly the card purchase.

And yeah, it's creepy.

I finally unsubscribed from their emails. I'm breaking their algorithm by being a woman living in a house with children who aren't mine. Keep getting ads for baby stuff even though I hardly ever buy baby stuff. Target, why don't you understand polyamory?

[dragonlady7]

Oh every corporation that creepily stalks you gets SUPER EXCITED when you show signs of having kids, though!!! Amazon is DYING to make me set up a profile about my kids because they can't figure it out because I intermittently purchase all kinds of gift and maintenance items for a spectrum of children's ages... because they're not my kids, they're friends' kids and niblings, and I like to spoil them now and again, but they're not mine, so they can't get a lock on how old they are and what gender and it drives them nuts.

I don't know how Target would know my card, though. I mean-- I guess-- it has my name on it? but it's not tied to my email, and it's a new card since last I bought anything online from them.
I think it is actually that they've paid whatever they've got to for Google to tell them when people are in their store, because Google of course knew I was at Target, Google asks me all the time how my visit to this or that place went, and i tell them because it amuses me to see how they try to use that data.
(They think my yurt in the woods is a packing supplies store seven miles away, or a golf course four miles away, and constantly ask me to post the photos I've taken of the spiders or whatever so that other visitors to the golf course can evaluate the place. i'm like... no but that would be funny.)