How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did – Forbes

Here’s an eye-opening look at how closely (and eerily) Target tracks its customers’ purchases.

This isn’t the half of what stores can do, though. Before I got my current gig, I did a telephone interview with a company which made recognition software for in-store video systems. Supposedly this software could track customers as they made their way around the store, including how long a customer lingered on a particular aisle. It was Big Brother to the extreme and while I needed the work, I’m glad I didn’t have to get into that spooky stuff.

Twitter, Guy Adams And The Cost Of Being A User – Forbes

Twitter suspended the account of journalist Guy Adams over his tweeting an NBC executive’s publically-available work email address. This heavy-handedness is another example that social media platforms where you are the product aren’t necessarily going to have your best interests at heart.

Maybe you thought Twitter exists to be a community. Or a tool. It doesn’t. It’s a media company that outsources the vast majority of its content. But outsourced doesn’t have to mean agnostic. In fact, it will mean that less and less as more partnerships emerge.

But maybe you thought you were Twitter’s customer. Or a partner. You’re not. You don’t pay, you don’t vote, you use. Like almost all social media sites, you are a user. And that distinction matters. NBC, for instance, is both a customer and a partner. The difference has been fairly clear the last day or so.

via Twitter, Guy Adams And The Cost Of Being A User – Forbes.

Update 9:29 PM: NBC withdrew its complaint and Adams’s account was reinstated around 2:30 today. Twitter explains on its blog (though the statement still claims the email Adams shared was private when it was not).