Personalization vs. Privacy: Why Your Mailbox Doesn’t Feel Creepy (But Your Phone Might)

There’s a moment every marketer knows. You get an oddly specific ad right after talking about that exact product out loud, and it feels like your phone was listening. In reality it’s more often a mix of browsing history, location data, app activity, and shared household data doing the work behind the scenes. Or you get a text from a company you technically signed up for once, three years ago, and completely forgot about. Either way, that little jolt, that “wait, how do they know that” feeling, has a name in marketing circles: the creepiness factor.

Read more: https://burlingtonpress.com/2026/09/09/personalization-vs-privacy-why-your-mailbox-doesnt-feel-creepy-but-your-phone-might/