Sears took my wife's email address without us even giving it to them
11-10-15, 10:22 AM
#1
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Sears took my wife's email address without us even giving it to them
Can anyone tell me if this is normal/legal/etc.?
At home, my wife was logged into her work email, which is on a government webmail site. While she was signed in on one browser tab, I realized we needed batteries and started looking around for some on another tab. One of the sites I went to was Sears.com, using MY Sears account to look for batteries, but didn't buy anything.
The next day, my wife goes into work and she has an email in her work account saying "Thanks for looking, are you still interested?" with a picture of the batteries I was looking at. My wife has never opened an account with Sears or given her personal or professional email to Sears.
Are companies just scraping a person's email now and marketing directly toward them, even if they are just browsing and have no account?
This seems crazy to me but sometimes I'm a little behind the times.
At home, my wife was logged into her work email, which is on a government webmail site. While she was signed in on one browser tab, I realized we needed batteries and started looking around for some on another tab. One of the sites I went to was Sears.com, using MY Sears account to look for batteries, but didn't buy anything.
The next day, my wife goes into work and she has an email in her work account saying "Thanks for looking, are you still interested?" with a picture of the batteries I was looking at. My wife has never opened an account with Sears or given her personal or professional email to Sears.
Are companies just scraping a person's email now and marketing directly toward them, even if they are just browsing and have no account?
This seems crazy to me but sometimes I'm a little behind the times.
11-10-15, 11:49 PM
#3
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: Sears took my wife's email address without us even giving it to them
They didn't skim it. But at some point in time someone wasn't paying attention and accidentally gave it to them (probably you) and yes they tie IP addresses to e-mail so they can send an e-mail if someone from said IP is poking around their site.
11-11-15, 06:38 AM
#4
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Sears took my wife's email address without us even giving it to them
Can anyone tell me if this is normal/legal/etc.?
At home, my wife was logged into her work email, which is on a government webmail site. While she was signed in on one browser tab, I realized we needed batteries and started looking around for some on another tab. One of the sites I went to was Sears.com, using MY Sears account to look for batteries, but didn't buy anything.
The next day, my wife goes into work and she has an email in her work account saying "Thanks for looking, are you still interested?" with a picture of the batteries I was looking at. My wife has never opened an account with Sears or given her personal or professional email to Sears.
Are companies just scraping a person's email now and marketing directly toward them, even if they are just browsing and have no account?
This seems crazy to me but sometimes I'm a little behind the times.
At home, my wife was logged into her work email, which is on a government webmail site. While she was signed in on one browser tab, I realized we needed batteries and started looking around for some on another tab. One of the sites I went to was Sears.com, using MY Sears account to look for batteries, but didn't buy anything.
The next day, my wife goes into work and she has an email in her work account saying "Thanks for looking, are you still interested?" with a picture of the batteries I was looking at. My wife has never opened an account with Sears or given her personal or professional email to Sears.
Are companies just scraping a person's email now and marketing directly toward them, even if they are just browsing and have no account?
This seems crazy to me but sometimes I'm a little behind the times.
If he was logged into his account at Sears, how did they get her email address?
11-11-15, 07:53 AM
#5
DVD Talk Gold Edition
Re: Sears took my wife's email address without us even giving it to them
They (Sears or one of the tracking companies on the Sears page) pulled it from the open browser tab that had her email. Welcome to the world of targeted/tracked advertising.
