Attempts to stay anonymous on the web will only put the NSA on your trail
A vivid description of this was provided recently by Janet Vertesi, a sociologist at Princeton University. She gave a talk at a conference describing her experience of trying to keep her pregnancy secret from marketers.
.. The really significant moment came when she came to buy a big-ticket item – an expensive stroller (aka pushchair) that was the urbanite’s equivalent of an SUV. Her husband tried to buy $500 of Amazon gift vouchers with cash, only to discover that this triggered a warning: retailers have to report people buying large numbers of gift vouchers with cash because, well, you know, they’re obviously money launderers.