[XCSme]

Agree, first-party tracking is a legitimate business interest. When you interact with a business, you should reasonably expect that they will gather some data, voluntary or not. Even basic stuff of "a user purchased a pair of socks and a birthday card", then they can use the info to improve the user experience, like put those products closer together or offer a bundle discount.

[bobmaxup]

if that was all the normal stores did, that is whatever, but really digital tracking is like if a store took note of my body type, hair style, clothes choices, accent, eye color, fingerprints, how long i took to decide on purchases, what i purchased, my credit card, what other stores i have visited, and general phenotype to build a profile of me as a customer and then asked some oracle about my behavior based on that information (actual or imagined), which that oracle would then use to build larger profiles to further predict my own and others' behavior

[XCSme]

As far as I know, this kind of really in-depth tracking and personalization is only done by the giant companies (think Amazon, Zalando, etc.). I doubt small online shops have the knowledge and manpower to create and use such user profiles.

[pdimitar]

If they stopped there that would be great. But we all know they gather much more info.