[newbusox]

I agree. I'm sure there was a time not too long ago when merchants at local shops would know customers by name and learn their habits, and, possibly, be able to learn intimate details about customers by looking at what products they bought. If the merchant then recommended a product to one such customer based on those observations, that's good business. I suppose the translation from local town merchant to faceless corporation is something of a change (most notably because the corporation may be able to use this information for other/nefarious purposes), but, conceptually, it seems to be replicating the same behavior that doubtlessly has occurred in some form since people began selling products to other people. Instead of arguing that businesses have become more invasive of our privacy, you could also argue that we have simply become more protective (or aware of) our privacy in recent years, which is why this seems like a big problem to a lot of people.

[pbhjpbhj]

If you warch the old BBC classic 'Open All Hours' about a corner shop you'll see this behaviour - "we've got that gingerbread that your Mr likes so much" or whatever.