Question

Most major retailers compile information about you based on what, when, and how you buy.  For example, Target Brands, Inc. uses a very sophisticated data collection process that assigns each shopper a unique guest identification code that tracks the shopper's habits, which become the source of predictions for future consumer behavior.

Should merchants be allowed to use buying patterns to learn personal information about their customers, such as whether they are pregnant? Be sure to explain and support your responses from a legal perspective.

Answer 1

It is a good method of analyzing customers buying habits. Best way to sell product to a customer is to know what the customer wants. With this information. You can easily predict when a customer will come to your store, what they will look for, and how much they are willing to spend for the items they need. But all these could be used very carefully as in case of pregnant woman example ladies may feel uncomfortable when they get to know that someone is spying on them. Though it is illegal to indulge in that information which is irrelevant to business but getting information about one becoming pregnant to enhance sales through advertising the products they might need is not illegal. Just the method to advertise such population should be ethical. Using data to predict a woman’s pregnancy could be a public-relations disaster. So the main thing to decide the method to get their advertisements into expectant mothers’ hands without making it appears they were spying on them.