Discussion on:

When does Big Data become a tool to spy on consumers?

The real answer is that they already have gone too far.

The real question they are asking is what is the next intrusion increment to be attain without raising the ire and wrath of customers (money buckets, as it termed in the industries, they don't care about people, just how much money they can pry out of the customer base). The game so far has been the same as the governments and that is to inch along continually encroaching more and more on the individual in order to take away all privacy in a rush to sweeten their own, and most times, personal bottom line.

MT C

Wasn't that already a fact about 40 -50 or more years ago with help from IBM and the telephone giant Bell Telephone?
It's just that it's become easy for any small company to 'own' your data now.

In a way it's convenient to get targeted ads.
Problem is, they're for stuff I've already bought & don't need another one.
Maybe they should eliminate the stuff you've recently bought, unless it's short term consumable - like cereal.
Or stuff you never have enough of - like shoes.

I think there should be legislation against requiring consumers to enter their phone number or club card for sales. At the very least it should be disallowed to record all your purchases with your identifying information since all of this data from all different stores is being collected and analyzed to give a very personal picture of a particular person. I understand the business needs of understanding what is bought--but targeting to an individual rather than general demographics of a store is way to "Big Brother" and is an invasion of privacy. Vis a Vis the pregnant teen.

I kinda miss the old demassified days. Neighborhoods, mom & pop stores, knowing who you were dealing with, instead of being a node of aggregate data in an impersonal commercial ecosystem. Something about this human's spirit does not align well along these rectilinear gridlines, rows and tables. A somewhat misplaced suspension of disbelief in the constant vertiginous barrage of trumped up novelty has somehow replaced terra firma. Oh, brave new world,,,