Why Can't Americans Find Out What Facebook Knows About Them?
It was so creepy, the moment I realized how well Big Data knew me. I was sitting in the newsroom, some ordinary afternoon. Idly, I clicked over to Facebook, where an advertisement caught my eye.
There, on my screen, was an image of the exact pair of hot pink Tory Burch sandals—the shoes I was wearing at that very moment. On my feet and on my screen: the same color, the same style, identical twins in patent leather. I had bought them in-person, on sale, and had never looked at them anywhere online or even visited the designer's website. But somehow, Facebook determined, these were the sandals for me. And they were right.
It was a silly thing. So Facebook knows what kinds of shoes I like. So what? But it weirded me out. How did they? And more importantly:
