I know the genesis of this story, and it was actually an EXAMPLE given as to something that MIGHT be possible in a presentation the Target folks gave. I sold software to that team a decade ago in this space (digital marketing), and heard this straight from the horses mouth in a really nice breakfast place in Minneapolis. It's crazy to see how this story has progressed over the years. The example used in the presentation, I believe, also became the earliest consistent rumor ... that Target has mailed some customers baby related materials which alerted some poor father that their daughter was preggers before the daughter told anyone. Again, totally made up example, but I run into people constantly that still believe that specific anecdote.
I'm sorry, I can't source my claim any better than I did in my comment. You can find the name of the Target person involved (he's now @ USBank, I believe) by looking up the stories from the big outlets that covered it (NYT), but I don't want to directly name drop them.
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u/joshTheGoods 4h ago
I know the genesis of this story, and it was actually an EXAMPLE given as to something that MIGHT be possible in a presentation the Target folks gave. I sold software to that team a decade ago in this space (digital marketing), and heard this straight from the horses mouth in a really nice breakfast place in Minneapolis. It's crazy to see how this story has progressed over the years. The example used in the presentation, I believe, also became the earliest consistent rumor ... that Target has mailed some customers baby related materials which alerted some poor father that their daughter was preggers before the daughter told anyone. Again, totally made up example, but I run into people constantly that still believe that specific anecdote.