Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

I don't know whether or not facebook is doing this, but it is worth knowing that supermarket purchase data is often merged with online profiles. For example, my ISP (Verizon FIOS) buys this data, merges it with subscription information and household data and then "shares" it with their internet advertising service bureau, who happens to be google. They don't need 3rd party cookies in these scenarios because they can match ip to subscriber name & address.

I don't believe there are feeds that are real time enough to support next day purchase correlation, but there certainly will be in the future.

Note that even if you've given them bad or no data when you obtained the affinity card they still match you with your credit cards that you've used at the grocery.

You missed the point. From the quote: "Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy..."

In other words, wine glasses are on par with lawn mowers as far as pregnant women are concerned. They know women aren't interested in them.

They can't track you if you use Ghostery.

Even worse is the "Why not try X, your friend Y is."

This was especially fun in my case when, under the heading "You might like" I had: " just signed up on ". :)

I don't entirely mind them profiling me based on what I choose to put on Facebook. But leaking it to my friends is weird.

(I know you can restrict the audience for everything you do, and I actively do this, but it is soooo easy to slip up).

What I wonder is, what kind of attitude will people who grow up with those kinds of analytics have towards them?

A little while ago in a conversation about privacy an acquaintance told me that he feels good about the fact there is someone or something out there that cares about his interests, even if it's Google [1]. Thinking back to this brings up in my mind the conversation with the AI Morpheus in Deus Ex [2]; looks like it is still a tossup whether it will turn out to have been prescient. I don't consider data mining to be inherently unethical but I'm not sure what to think of this.

[1] To put this in context, at the time the person in question also reported feeling depressed and lonely.

[2] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Deus_Ex#Morpheus_2

I'll quote the juiciest part:

"Morpheus: Human beings feel pleasure when they are watched. I have recorded their smiles as I tell them who they are.

JC Denton: Some people just don't understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance.

Morpheus: The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms.

JC Denton: Electronic surveillance hardly inspires reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence.

Morpheus: God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary.

JC Denton: No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera.

Morpheus: The human organism always worships. First, it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgment of others), next it will be self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment.

JC Denton: You underestimate humankind's love of freedom.

Morpheus: The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization."