I find it interesting that people are getting so worked about this. The day we started using credit cards, companies were collecting information about us. We lost our privacy before many of us were even born.
There are algorithms that can take "scrubbed" databases and match it back to names, addresses, etc.
Read up on Target sending ads directed at pregnant women to a teenager who's father didn't even know yet.
Target advertises to pregnant teenMore...I worked in the Direct Mail Advertising industry for 15 years. Retailers maintain a shocking amount of data on every and they've been doing long before Google or the Internet ever came on the scene.
